IDT Systems: SCSI Bus support for UNIX pc (product desc. -- *LONG*)

[Lenny Tropiano]

Today I got in the mail the advertisement from IDT Systems, Inc in
Newark, Delware for the SCSI Bus support.  They are doing some serious 
hardware development for the UNIX PC (3B1/7300).  I am very pleased to 
see that someone thinks this machine is worth it, and is continuing to do 
research and development on a product AT&T considers *dead*.  [For that 
I applaud them].

I spoke with Matthew Marshall about the product, asked a few questions and
was all in all very pleased.  The due date for the SCSI Bus is late
August.  The current cost is $350.00, but that might change if production
costs do. [He did mention it probably is pretty stable]

The driver that is included is a "generic" one that conforms to different
SCSI periphs that you hook onto the bus.  He said, "We don't plan to support
*all* the hard drives and tape drives, but we are aiming to get as many
as we can."  He then rattled off about 12 different manufacturers of 
hard drives and tape drives that they are going to support (eg. Seagate,
Priam, Maxtor, Miniscribe, Rodime, Teac, etc...)  

Below is the actual advertisement (typed in by me -- I apologize for any
typographical errors, I tried to catch them all) that I received in the
mail.  Matthew gave me permission to reproduce it electronically over
this network [in fact he seemed to encourage it -- I wonder why :-)]

One final note:  I don't have any affiliation with IDT Systems, Inc or
it's affiliates.  I am just relaying this to the rest of the world so you
can see for yourself what they are planning.  Those who spoke with IDT should
get this advertisement shortly.


--- cut here for IDT Information --- --- cut here for IDT Information ---

IDT Systems, Inc.
AT&T Value Added Reseller
Contact:  Matthew Marshall


General products
----------------

	The following lists the products that are actively shipping, shipping
	in the near future and are considering.  For more information contact
	us:

	Tel: (302) 731-1583	Fax: (302) 731-4613
	Usenet address:   uunet!eplrx7!mouse!idt

	Any good suggestions or comments are appreciated.


Available now
-------------

	o  Motherboard RAM upgrade from 1/2 Mbyte to 2 Mbyte (contact for
	   current pricing).
	o  Hard drive upgrade to allow the internal ST506 hard disk to be
	   larger than 67 Mbytes (maximum of 4 Gigabyte).


Available in August (see note)
------------------------------

	o  RAM Expansion board upgrade from 1/2 Mbyte to 2 Mbytes (contact
	   for current pricing).
	o  Bus Station (TM) SCSI adapter board (~$350).  May optionally be 
	   bundled with 20, 40, 60, or 100 Mbyte SCSI hard drive.

Note:  Engineering told marketing that these products would be available in
       3rd quarter, so of course they (the marketeers) figured that 3rd quarter
       starts July 1st and started advertising the product as available at the
       end of June.  Engineering figures that the product will actually 
       start shipping at the end of August.  *Sigh*


Being kicked around in R&D as possibilities if there is enough interest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

	o  68020 coprocessor/accelerator card.
	o  68881 math accelerator card.
	o  Appletalk card.
	o  Eight high speed serial channel card.
	o  Four 2400 baud modems on a single card
	o  IEEE-488 card.
	o  Large bitmapped screen graphics card.
	o  Slot prototyping card.


				SCSI Bus Station specs
				----------------------

1. General Description

	The SCSI Bus Station (tm) is a single slot interface card for
	the AT&T 3B1 or UNIX PC designed to interconnect with as many
	as seven other SCSI (Small Computer Standard Interface) bus devices
	such as hard disk drives, tape drives, and other computers.

	The equipment comes complete with board, 18" SCSI cable, installation
	and diagnostics software and users' manual.

	The board is warranted for two years.  Software updates, telephone
	and BBS support are free for the first 90 days to registered users.
	Extended support is available for a nominal fee on a yearly basis.

2. SCSI Specifics

	2.1 Level supported

		The Bus Station supports the original SCSI specification 
		since SCSI-2 is currently incomplete.  It is capable of acting
		as a SCSI host (initiator) or slave (target).

	2.2 Addressing

		The SCSI address of the board is software configured at 
		powerup time.  The actual address (0-7) can be changed via
		a configuration program.  The board address also sets the
		arbitration priority of the board;  the higher the number
		the higher the priority.  Address 7 takes precedence over
		all others.

	2.3 Bus cable length

		The maximum bus (cable) length is 20 meters.  The board to
		SCSI cable supplied is 18" in length.  Longer cables are 
		available for purchase.

	2.4 Bus termination

		SCSI specifications state that the devices at either end of
		the physical bus be terminated with resistors.  The card
		is supplied with removable resistors in place to allow the 
		computer to be at either end of the physical bus.

	2.5 Connectors

		Two connectors on the board are available at the back of the
		computer to allow daisy chaining of SCSI devices.  The
		connector is a DB25 socket with a Macintosh (tm) compatible
		pinout.  The cable supplied with the card adapts this to the
		standard SCSI 50 pin Centronics connector.

3. PC Specifics

	3.1 Slot installation

		The Bus Station can be installed in any one of the three slots,
		but best performance is gotten from installing the board in
		slot 2.

		Installation of the hardware into the computer should take
		less than 15 minutes.  Installation of the software should 
		tke less than 5 minutes.  Rebooting the system always seems to
		take too long, generally about 15 minutes.

	3.2 DMA

		The adapter has its own DMA channels running independently of
		the host computer onboard DMA for maximum processor bus 
		transfer rate.  The actual bus bandwidth (maximum communication
		rate) is dependent on characteristics of the device 
		addressed on the SCSI bus.

	3.3 Reset Switch

		In addition to the two connectors, the board is supplied with
		a momentary contact switch on the back to reset the SCSI bus.

4. Software

	4.1 Installer

		The installer is responsible for making the SCSI driver
		available to the system hardware and software.

	4.2 Configuration Program

		The configuration program controls certain aspects of the 
		SCSI device drivers.  It determines and sets the 
		characteristics of each expected device on the SCSI at
		powerup and can be used to add new SCSI devices to the
		driver.  The user can either select device characteristics
		from a menu or specify new ones.  The next few paragraphs
		lists a few of the configurable characteristics for common
		SCSI devices.

		Hard drives are configured for number of cylinders, number
		of data surfaces (heads), sectors per track, number of
		logical devices controlled and SCSI address.

		Tape drives are configured for tape length, formatted 
		capacity, number of logical devices controlled, and SCSI 
		address.

		Computers are configured for communications supported 
		(synchronous or asynchronous), computer type and SCSI
		address.

	4.3 Generic device driver

		A generic device driver is supplied to be modified via the
		configuration program to allow communication with standard
		SCSI devices.

	4.4 Diagnostics

		Diagnostics are supplied for hardware checkout and bus
		monitoring.


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