Controller/driver combo... will it work?

[James Van Artsdalen]

In article <3575 at killer.UUCP>, ajohnson at killer.UUCP (Andy Johnson) writes:
> When the drive is configured, you tell the bios that there are 0
> hard drives installed.  It works. Just fine.

That's because DOS uses the BIOS disk parameter table, like you're supposed
to.  uPort uses the drive type number, like you're *NOT* supposed to do.
Since the OMTI builds the correct disk parameter table during
POST/initialization but can't change the ROM, nothing that uses the drive type
number is going to work.

> My question is:  will this work under Mport unix?

No.  uPort thinks there's no drive present, and I've been unable to convince
it otherwise.

> I know that "Northgate" has been selling this same combo for a while
> on their "AT".  Has anyone had any experience with this?

Yes.  Good DOS controller.  SCO has Xenix at least booting under the OMTI,
but I've heard reports of truly abysmal throughput (ie, much slower than
ordinary ST-506).

Once you get past the simply drive type problem, you next have to deal with
the fact that apparently the uPort drivers can't work with any with anything
but 17 sectors/track.  Say goodbye to all of your high capacity disks...

When I asked uPort, I was told that they were working on the OMTI, and even
got the address of the contractor, but never followed up on it.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james     "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746