3B1 Expansions - where'd they all go?

[Steve Barber]

This summer it looks like I'll be looking to add another drive to
my system, and I've noticed that all the talk about this kind of thing
has died down.  I have a few questions anyway.  (I have been reading
news sporadically over the last year or so.  I didn't think I missed
anything, but it's possible.  Sorry if I'm just bringing up old subjects.)

1) Whatever happened to IDT, who was supposed to be making a SCSI board
   for the 3B1?  I haven't heard anything about them or the board lately,
   and when I sent mail to them a few months ago I got no reply (not even
   a bounced message).  Is there or is there not a SCSI board available now?

2) I also don't remember seeing anything in recent months about the two
   or three different upgrade kits that were being made that would allow
   the use of a 2nd drive and drives with higher capacities.  Are any of
   these kits available now, or did they fizzle out?
   
3) How slow is slow?  I.e. if I opt for a slow (say 40ms) 2nd drive onto
   which I would probably place /usr/spool, whatever source code I keep
   online, and other misc. stuff that's not speed-critical it shouldn't
   be too big of a deal.  But if I were compiling on that drive, what
   kind of an impact on speed would I see?  Are there any drives bigger
   than 40 Mb that are ~40ms avg. access time?  (I'm looking for as much
   capacity for as little $$$ as I can without sacrificing too much speed).
   (I have 3 Mb of memory installed and a lot of disk buffers allocated in
   3.51a)

4) What about faster drives?  Would I notice a big speed difference if I
   installed an ~18-~20 second drive as my root drive and moved my present
   Miniscribe 6085 (28ms) to the 2nd drive position?  Is the 3b1 fast enough
   to make good use of a drive that fast?  I do use the system pretty hard.
   I realize that access time probably isn't that relavant to this question,
   whereas transfer rate probably would be, but I'm just checking.

5) If the SCSI board does exist, how big of a difference does its faster
   transfer rate make?
   
6) Is the Western Digital controller ([12]010) bright enough to be able to
   handle simultaneous requests for both drives at once?  Or can it only
   handle one request at a time?

7) Has anyone come up with a satisfactory solution to the RF interference
   problem found when using external drives?  What about using shielded
   round multiconductor cables instead of ribbon cable?
   
8) Any ideas where I can find a cheap case and power supply for an external
   drive(s)?  Note: my idea of cheap is less than $100!  I'd kind of like
   it to hold both hard disks and maybe a 1.2 or 1.44Mb floppy drive if
   anyone has figured out how to do that yet.  I was thinking that a
   PC clone tower-style cabinet would look nice and (generally) hold a lot
   of drives, but those plus a power supply don't seem to be very affordable.


Hopefully that's not too many questions for one posting.  I am a college
student with very limited funds.  I'm willing to pay a little extra to do
it RIGHT, but finances say I have to make it work the first time!

One other quick unrelated question: can someone mail me the old discussion
about replacing 3b1 fans with other AC or DC fans?  Mine is starting to make
lots of strange noises when its cold and just starting up, and I may have
to replace it soon.

Thanks a bunch!
-- 
--**-Steve Barber----steveb at shade.Ann-Arbor.MI.US----(cmode)-------------------