From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-Id: <9803012009.AA19319@alph02.triumf.ca>
Subject: Re: CD-ROM from SCO unlikely
To: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 12:09:46 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <199803011925.LAA08986@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at Mar 1, 98 11:25:54 am
Content-Type: text
Sender: owner-pups@minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Precedence: bulk

> > Both a Webster ESDC (1 Megabyte cache, Hitachi DK512-12 ESDI drive) and
> > an Andromeda SCDC (2 Mbyte cache connected to many SCSI devices, including an
> 	I tracked down an address and phone number for Andromeda Systems - they
> 	are real close to me (in fact I drive by them every visit to Fry's ;-))
>     Andromeda Systems, Inc.
>     9000 Eton Avenue
>     Canoga Park, CA 91304
>     818-709-7600 (voice)
>     818-709-7407 (FAX)
> 
> 	No mention of a WWW site though.

Try http://www.andromedasystems.com/

>       I'd imagine their boards, while
> 	very good, are quite expensive.  As much as I'd like a Zip drive
> 	on the 11/93 I can't see spending US$1-2k for a $139 disk drive :-)

Hook up 6 other SCSI devices to the board and you might change your mind!
The SCDC also supports standard 34-pin 5.25" and 3.5" floppies.

> > 2.  "find /usr -print > /dev/null" took 166.4 seconds on the WQESD+Hitachi
> >     and 165.0 seconds on the SCDC+ZIP.
> 
> 	WOW.  That is quite surprising.
> 
> > Steven was expecting to see a substantial hit due to the ZIP's access time,
> 
> 	Quite so.  Especially on the 'find' which is almost pure 'seek' 
> 	operations.

Actually, the ZIP "in-use" LED wasn't lit during most of the 'find'.  I
suspect the Andromeda SCDC cached most of the important inodes quite
early on.

In terms of raw bandwidth to the Q-bus, nothing I've ever seen comes
close to the SCDC.  2 Mbytes/second may not be a whole lot by modern
PCI bus standards, but on the Q-bus it's very impressive.

> 	Wasn't there mention somewhere of a 200mb Zip?

I've heard mention of it too, but AFAIK it's still vaporware.  100 Mbytes
is, indeed, pretty tight for a 2.11BSD distribution, but it does fit.

Tim. (shoppa@triumf.ca)