SCO and hard disk errors

[Karl Denninger]

In article <6800003 at cpe> neese at cpe.UUCP writes:
>
>Another solution is to use SCSI Hard Drives.  Tandy is now selling a version
>of SCO (called 2.2.4) which has support for the Tandy 16 Bit Intelligent SCSI
>Host Adapter.  Flaw management is completely transparent to the user and is
>much more elegant than any other solution I have ever seen.  The speed is
>also remarkable.  With two of the SCSI drives, disk throughput is 83% faster
>than the Compaq's 130MB ESDI drive.  Not to mention that CPU overhead is
>about 1/2 that of associated ST506/ESDI controllers due to the First Party
>DMA approach Tandy uses.  As I also understand it, Tandy will be the only
>vendor who will have 2.2.4.  There are also numerous fixes to the kernel
>over 2.2.[12].

A few comments:

First, ALL SCSI drives have transparent flaw managemenet.  Tandy is not
unique in that regard.  Thus, any company which can provide an SCSI driver
and controller has this "unique" benefit of the "more elegant" solution....

I'm also interested in some numbers on the "50% overhead reduction" claim.
First-party DMA... hmm... this is the MC5000 you're touting, right?

Finally, and most disturbingly, you mention "fixes to the kernel".  Would
you care to list some of the flaws you've found?  We've been running 2.2.1
here for many months, and have never had a *kernel* problem.   I'd be quite
surprised if SCO was not intending to supply these "kernel" fixes to all
their customers; that would be very much out of character for that fine
organization.  Are you implying or stating that Tandy will have the *only* 
version with these fixes in place?

It should also be noted that your comments have a slight inherent bias, as
your site is *Tandy's Computer Product Engineering* department (not obvious
either -- no organization was listed in the posting.... until I looked in 
the maps....).  I've no problem with postings from such sources, of course
-- but I do think you should identify the organization you represent!

--
Karl Denninger (ddsw1!karl) Data: (312) 566-8912, Voice: (312) 566-8910
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    "Quality solutions at a fair price"