Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:14:23 -0500
From:      dkelly@hiwaay.net
To:        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Floppy Driver Problem Solved :^> 
Message-ID:  <199709142014.PAA01208@nospam.hiwaay.net>
In-Reply-To: Message from j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)  of "Sun, 14 Sep 1997 16:53:22 %2B0200." <19970914165322.NS35867@uriah.heep.sax.de> 

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> As dkelly@hiwaay.net wrote:
> 
> > Teac makes a SCSI floppy, AKA: Floptical. Does the normal foppy densities
> > (not sure about 2.88M) plus 20M with the right disk.
> > 
> > They appear on the surplus market sometimes for about $150. All SGI systems
> > with an optional floppy drive use them.
> 
> About the worst piece of junk i've ever seen.  Together with SGI's
> bright idea to mount them without a dust-protection flap, they hardly
> ever made it longer than 14 days without cleaning, even for plain
> floppies.  Let alone the optical stuff.  And, they were _dog_ slow.

I agree they are slow. At least the way SGI implements them. As for the
dust flap, all 5 of mine have them, and we've never had a service call
on them either. Probably helps a lot that now all our buildings at work
are non-smoking. And I admit, the floptical isn't a heavily used item.

But back to the issue, they solved this problem for SGI, the one about
FDC's and meeting their realtime requirements.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.





Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199709142014.PAA01208>