Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 02:00:03 EDT From: Wm E Davidsen Jr <386users@crdos1.crd.ge.com> To: 386users@TWG.COM Subject: 80386 mailing list, vol 5 #3 80386 User's mailing list vol 5 #03 Jul 20, 1989 In this issue: File: "386USERS MAIL" being sent to you 6386 StarLan Server For Sale: Intel Inboard386 Generic Hard Disk for Compaq 386 [ 4 msgs ] Getting disk hardware info in a program HP-PaintJet Handheld scanner information Help Help! My 386 is dead. Re: How many users _really_ ? The addresses for the list are now: 386users@TWG.COM - for contributions to the list or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users 386users-request@TWG.COM - for administrivia or ...!uunet!TWG.COM!386users-request P L E A S E N O T E If you want to get on or off the list, or change your address, please mail to the 386users-request address, or the message will be delayed by having to hand forward it (for your convenience, not mine). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu Subject: File: "386USERS MAIL" being sent to you Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 09:59:10 CDT Received: from UMCVMB.BITNET by NDSUVM1.BITNET (Mailer R2.03B) with BSMTP id 7885; Mon, 19 Jun 89 09:58:55 CDT Received: by UMCVMB (Mailer R2.03B) id 6663; Mon, 19 Jun 89 09:54:46 CDT Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 09:48:11 CDT From: "Michael Murphy" To: 386users@NDSUVM1 Subject: 6386 StarLan Server I am presently running a AT&T 6386 WGS as a DOS server on a StarLAN Local Area Network. Because the network is not used much and because I have 4MB of RAM sitting idle, we would like to make better use of the machine. Ideally, I would like to run DOS applications and the server simulatenously without having to migrate to the UNIX operating system. Could VM/386 be used to solve this problem? Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you very much. Michael Murphy ------------------------------ From: marco@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com (Marco Dalla-Gasperina) HP McMinville Division Subject: For Sale: Intel Inboard386 Date: 13 Jun 89 15:23:48 GMT Intel Inboard386 16MHz 1Mb RAM Connector cable still in the box w/warranty card $1200 Marco Dalla Gasperina (503) 472-5101 (work) (503) 472-4070 (home) marco@hpmcaa.HP.COM ------------------------------ From: paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) Digital Equipment Corporation Subject: Generic Hard Disk for Compaq 386 Date: 13 Jun 89 19:57:36 GMT Can you please send me list of non-Compaq hard disk that works with my Compaq 386/16? Currently I have 130 megB but this has some problem so would like to buy couple of 30 megB generic hard drive. I am wondering if MiniScribe or Seagate works with Compaq. Compaq historically does not support 3rd party hardware so it is difficult for me to check rom for correct setup. Thanks in Advance. Willy ------------------------------ From: brown@astroatc.UUCP (Vidiot) Vidiot's Hangout Subject: Re: Generic Hard Disk for Compaq 386 Date: 14 Jun 89 20:18:15 GMT In article <8906131957.AA22435@decwrl.dec.com> paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) writes: < paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) writes: paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) writes: > > >Can you please send me list of non-Compaq hard disk that works with >my Compaq 386/16? Currently I have 130 megB but this has some problem >so would like to buy couple of 30 megB generic hard drive. I am >wondering if MiniScribe or Seagate works with Compaq. > >Compaq historically does not support 3rd party hardware so it is >difficult for me to check rom for correct setup. > >Thanks in Advance. > >Willy >From having read numerous articles on the net vis-a-vis this question it would seem that Compaq has some tight grip on their disk interface. For what it's worth, Compaq is tight with Conner Peripheral in San Jose Cal. They ship something like 40% of their production to Compaq. This might be a good place to start looking for substitutes. ------------------------------ From: "Craig S. Cottingham" Subject: Getting disk hardware info in a program Date: Sat, 24 Jun 89 09:24:53 CDT Anyone know how an application can determine what kind of disks are attached to a PC? The AT and PS/2 have a ROM-BIOS interrupt (int 13H, function 08H) for this. Int 21H functions 1BH, 1CH, and 36H all will provide info about a _disk_ in the drive, but I need to know what the _drive_ is capable of. FORMAT does it somehow (or does it?). There's an IOCTL function (Int 21H, function 44H, subfunction 04H) that will read device driver-specific info, but of course the info depends upon the driver and there's not a standard format. Worse, block device drivers are not required to support this function. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance! _Craig S. Cottingham uc528665@umcvmb ------------------------------ From: "M.J.Hepperle" Subject: HP-PaintJet Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 15:46:41 MSZ I am going to receive a HP-PaintJet this week. I want to use this printer mainly with Microsoft Windows to print pictures of a surface modelling/ scientific graphing program. I also intend to prepare some hardcopies from EGA screens (hoping that some driver is included with the printer). I would be interested in source code and/or technical data about the printer to adapt a hardcopy-routine I wrote for programs which deactivate the Shift Print-key combination (written in Microsoft C 5.1) So I want to take snapshots of some Sierra game screens etc. If someone has informations on that Printer: Send mail to Martin (PACP at DS0RUS1I) ------------------------------ From: Murff%edinburgh.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Handheld scanner information Date: 25 Jun 89 14:18:50 bst Hello, I'm considering buying a handheld scanner, and 2 have caught my eye - the Mitsubishi 130AG A5 scanner (which can apparently handle up to 400dpi) and the Logitech ScanMan. Both come with software and interface according to the catalog. Does anyone have any experience of either of these products? I need the scanner for input to Ventura, so the software would have to be Pc-Paintbrush or DrHalo - is this the case ? JANET: djm@uk.ac.ed.etive Internet: djm%ed.etive@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Murff@uk.ac.ed.emas-a Murff%ed.emas-a@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk trinity@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis trinity%ed.cs.tardis@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk D.J. Murphy Chemistry Dept. Univ. of Edinburgh ------------------------------ From: CARL%SCU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: Help Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 11:15 PST Help! Has anyone on this list managed to connect the following (or similar) to a 386 system? Fujitsu 327MB ESDI drive Adaptec ESDI controller to a Mylex based 386 (20Mhz) system? The bios is AMI (Jan 88) on the Mylex board. I have been working on this for over a week with little success. (Fujitsu is a 2249E and the Adaptec is a 2322B). Any suggestions, warnings, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanx in advance... Carl Fussell Santa Clara Univ. CARL@SCU.BITNET ------------------------------ From: witt@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Wolf Carsten Witt) University of California, Berkeley Subject: Help! My 386 is dead. Date: 4 Jul 89 17:47:59 GMT Hello. Today my trusty 386 PC died, and I don't know why. If anybody out there has any idea about what the problem might be, I'd greatly appreciate any help I could get. My system configuration is (was?) as follows: * Micronics 20 MHz 386 system board revision A (80386 chip is only a 16 MHz chip) * 20 MHz 80387 installed on Micronics 387 adapter revision D * 2 MByte of 32 bit, 80 nsec static column RAM installed on Micronics memory board * 1.5 MByte of 16 bit, 120/150 nsec DRAM installed on AST Advantage * Paradise VGA Professional with NEC Multisync II * Western Digital WD1006V-MM2 floppy/hard disk controller (1:1) * TEAC 1.2 MByte, 5.25 in floppy drive * Sony 1.44 MByte, 3.5 in floppy drive * Maxtor XT1085 hard disk (first physical hard disk) * Seagate ST251-1 hard disk (second physical hard disk) * Logitech hi-res mouse * Logitech ScanMan * Serial/parallel I/O card I had been working on the machine for about half an hour without any problems when I left it alone to go to dinner. Approximatly two hours later I returned and noticed a weird clicking sound coming from the Maxtor drive. In addition, the screen would not reactivate after a key stroke to wake up the screen blanker. Ctrl-Alt-Del and the reset button had no effect. I shut the machine down and powered it back up... no dice. The machine did not display the BIOS start-up message, didn't beep, nothing! The Maxtor also did not make its usual power-up buzz (for those who have heard a Maxtor XT1085 start) but just kept clicking. The ST251-1, however, seemed to be resetting properly. Since, there seems to be something wrong with the Maxtor, I disconnected the hard disks and tried to restart the computer. After that failed, I removed all non-essential boards from the machine, checked the power supply, replaced the video board and disk controller with two others I had, but still there was no sign of life from the computer. I also noticed that the CMOS battery pack was very low, and therefore replaced the batteries, but, of course, that didn't fix anything either. If I can't get the 386 to work again, I'm in trouble, so if you have any suggestions about what I could do to try to fix it, please send me e-mail. Thanks. Wolf Witt, the desperate ------------------------------ From: neese@adaptex.UUCP Subject: Re: How many users _really_ ? Date: 5 Jul 89 23:58:00 GMT Well I guess I could get a few shots in here. (Let's see if I can raise some dust.) I've seen all kinds of discussions about the hard disk and cahcing versus non-cahching versus ESDI versus ST-506 versus SCSI. The overall problem with the At systems is that they were not designed to be multi-user systems. Although there have been some very good attempts at improving this. The real bottom line is when it comes to hard disks, almost all the solutions require the CPU to move the data around, even the caching controllers. Look what has happened to serial I/O,....anyone of those 20+ user systems out there using dumb serial I/O cards?? Why not?? The answer is of course obvious. Smart cards relieve the CPU of a lot of the mundane chores associated with serial I/O. So why not apply this simple idea to hard disk controllers/adapters. Reduce the CPU overhead, because that's what it is really about, by using intelligent controllers/adapters to do the dirty work of moving data around. Believe it or not, data can be moved faster, than a 386 can doing PIO across the slow AT bus. The overall goal is to balance the disk I/O with the CPU so that the CPU is not tied up with disk I/O so much of the time that user tasks take a hit in response time. This implies that not only do we need an approach that offloads the CPU, but can also be told when to take the bus and when not to. This should be done in the hardware, transparently to the system so that the controller can run asynchronously in the system. Let's take a scenario to see if this thought holds any water: I'll setup some arbitrary and somewhat realistic values. We are running on a 20Mhz 386. Take 2 hard drives moving data to the controller at 1MByte/second. (For the sake of sanity let's assume this is a burst transfer) Controller 1 is PIO running at 1.5MBytes/sec and Controller 2 is a bus master moving data at 6MBytes/sec. Contr #2 has been set to hold the bus for 5micro/s and stay off for 5micro/s. Now let's move 1MByte of data to main memory: Controller #1 Disk +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | | User ----+ 94.37 bytes +---------- ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 micro/s Controller #2 188.74 bytes User ----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Disk +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ Okay, we see that controller #1 took 60 micro/s to move 94.37 byes and more importantly, the CPU was tied up all 60 micro/s. Controller #2 moved 188.74 bytes in the same 60 Micro/s window but only used 30 micro/s of the CPU. Just for your info, 1.5MBytes/sec is about the fastest PIO rate a 386 can muster on the AT bus. The reason I used 6MBytes/sec for the bus master is from experience. Most 386 systems can actually run faster than that, say up to 8MBytes/sec, but I wanted to be more realistic about the wide variety of systems out there. Well. just food for thought. Roy Neese Adaptec Central Field Applications Engineer UUCP @ {merch,texbell,killer}!cpe!adaptex!neese ------------------------------ End of 80386 M/L ****************