#Titel Tests / Hardware / Rapidfire SCSI-II controller #Logo gadget24:Pinsel/AG.Tests #Font Losse 16 #C31 Review : Rapidfire SCSI-II controller #Font topaz 8 #C10 PRODUCT NAME #C21 Rapidfire SCSI-II controller for the Amiga #C10 DESCRIPTION #C21 A full-length Zorro card with SCSI-II Controller, space for mounting a Hard Drive to the card (HardCard Design), and up to 8Meg of Memory Expansion. #Seitenende #C10 INFORMATION #C21 Name: DKB Address: Post Office Box 930344 Wixom, MI 48393-0344 USA Telephone: (810) 348-3821 Fax: (810) 348-3755 Tech Hotline: (810) 348-3531 #C10 PRICE #C21 $159 U.S. (MSRP) #Seitenende #C10 SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE #C21 Any Amiga capable of taking ZORRO expansion cards. (A2000/A3000/A4000) #C10 SOFTWARE #C21 None. #C10 COPY PROTECTION #C21 None. #Seitenende #C10 MACHINE USED FOR TESTING #C21 As I am just building up a workable system after having my A3000 stolen, the machine I started with is definitely Bare-Bones, though it was the only machine I could get at the time here in the U.S. The Computer ------------ #C10 o Amiga 2000 rev (4.x) 7MHz o ECS Chipset w/1Meg Agnes and Super Denise o WorkBench 3.1 o 1 880K Floppy Drive #C21 And the Drives used: -------------------- #C10 o Quantum 40Meg Hard Drive (Picked up for $25) o Sony 2X CD-Rom Drive BACKGROUND #C21 As I mentioned above, I started out to build myself an Amiga system after my A3000 was stolen, but finding one was difficult. My search began shortly after Escom purchased the rights to the Amiga, which prompted people everywhere to purchase up what remaining A1200s were around (at least that's what the salesmen told me everywhere I called.) So, I got hold of an old A2000 bare-bones system and slowly but surely started on the road of expansion. Having had an A3000, and knowing many people with A3000 systems, I became accustomed to having SCSI Problems, in particular with CD-Rom Drives. When it came time to get a SCSI Controller, I wanted something that didn't have known problems with it, and yet I didn't want to spend a small fortune for it, and while I was going for it, I figured I'd go for a SCSI-II Controller. I then saw the add for the Rapidfire-not only would it give me SCSI-II, it would give me up to 8Megs of 72Pin 32Bit Memory expansion (though only 8Megs, as the A2000 can only take 8Megs of ram through the motherboard.) Unfortunately, when I ordered the card, it was not yet in stock, so I waited and waited. Finally, when it arrived, the waiting had only helped to grow my excitement. I had already mounted the CD-Rom Drive and one of the 40Meg Hard Drives I'd picked up at an electronics swap meet in the A2000 chassis, and was anxious to get it up and running. #C10 INSTALLATION #C21 In the bright red package, with images of a Bullet and target-sites all over the box, was the card, a short manual (7 Pages), a 2"-3" 50Pin Ribbon Cable (just long enough for the connection between the SCSI connector and a hard drive that can be mounted on the card itself [hardcard design]), and an installation disk. First, being a "good" computer user, I read through the manual completely. For Installation instructions, it basically said to remove the cover, insert the card, plug in the SCSI Cable, and power up. Most of the manual discussed memory expansion, and connecting SCSI devices. The truth is, installation is as easy as the manual describes. All you need to do is plug it in and go, although you should make sure that you've got everything connected correctly, and that you have all of the jumpers set correctly on your SCSI Devices (Which I did not, as the default settings on the CD-Rom Drive had the factory test jumper still in place. If you have an A2000, it pays to make sure that the jumpers are correct before installing the drive, as removing the drive from the 5.1/4" bay usually requires you to remove any/all cards from the machine so that you can get to the two inside screws that hold the 5.1/4" drive in place-not a fun thing to do.) Also be sure that you only have Termination Resistors on the last device on the SCSI Loop. #C10 Note:============================================================= Because I've seen this written in almost every review I've read, I'll place it here. Although I personally have no trouble opening up a computer to work on it, I've got quite a bit of experience in doing such. If you are not confident that you can safely do this, please have it done by a trained technician, as a computer is a terrible thing to waste, and, opening the computer can void some warranties if it is not done by a trained technician. ================================================================== #C21 Now, back to the review. After I got all of the correct jumpers in place, I plugged it back into the Controller, plugged the Hard Drive light into the correct connector, and switched it on. I was very happy to see the hard drive light flash as I booted off of the floppy disk. For the Hard Drive indicator light, there were three connectors on the RapidFire. One, marked A2000 (which I used), and two marked A4000, one for the connection from the motherboard, and the other out to the hard drive light. Although the manual does not describe it as such, it seems to be a pass-through for the Hard Drive Indicator light. This is nice, so that if you use an A4000's internal controller, then use the RapidFire as a second controller, you don't need to worry about either not having a light for one of your controllers, or having to add an additional LED for the new controller. After I re-booted off of floppy disk, I inserted the DKB Install disk that came with the package. Along with Drivers for the AMAX-II was the program RapidSET, which is a HDToolbox-like program specifically for the RapidFire Controller. While it seemed a little awkward when compared to HDToolbox (which may simply be because I'm more used to HDToolBox), it does the job well. With it, I partitioned and formatted the 40Meg Quantum into two twenty-meg Partitions (one of which I made bootable) without problem. Then, a quick re-boot (still off of the floppy disk at this point), and I had two new icons on my WorkBench. After formatting them and installing WorkBench on the first of my two partitions, another re-boot let me boot off of the Hard Drive. This is what I had been waiting for. In case you are not familiar with running an Amiga off of a one-floppy system with no hard drive, it requires the user to simply get into the habit of swapping floppies constantly. Now, that I have my WorkBench on the Hard Drive, I can use the one floppy for whatever I want without having to constantly swap my WorkBench disk in and out. #C10 CD-ROM DRIVE #C21 The Next Step was installing the CD-Rom Software. When I started looking for a SCSI Controller, and had already purchased a Sony CD-Rom Drive and wanted to find a controller that would work it. Having read reviews of many of the other controllers, some of which specifically had problems with Sony CD-Rom Drives, I decided to try the newest controller around, the RapidFire, in hopes that it would not have this problem. Lucky for me, I had no trouble with the Sony (Once I got the test jumper off.) I installed my older AsimWare AsimCDFS v2, using the "Standard Commodore Install Program," and again, with a re-boot, the Sony worked great. I had also read problems that some people had written about, basically that the A2000 would wait around for about two minutes with a SCSI CD-Rom drive attached before booting. I have encountered no such problem with the RapidFire. When I turn on the machine, the floppy drive light comes on, the hard drive light flashes, and it boots up with CD-Rom Drive connected-just like that. #C10 MEMORY EXPANSION #C21 On the Rapidfire card, there are two 72Pin Simm sockets for memory expansion. What is nice about these sockets is that they are mounted on the card in such a way that the Simms can be added easily to the board without having to remove the card from the computer, which was good for me, as I did not have any 72Pin x 32Bit Simms on hand when I installed the card (I was anxious to get the hard drive up and running.) The three jumpers, mounted at the top of the card (again, for easy access-so that they can be changed without having to remove the card from the computer) allow you to easily change the memory configuration according to the jumper chart, which is located in the Manual AND painted onto the card itself (so that if you loose the manual, you can still set the jumpers.) After I got hold of a 1x32 Simm (4Meg), all I had to do was insert it into the topmost SIMM socket, set the jumper (in this case, just remove the first jumper), and I had 4Meg of fast ram. Simple. #C10 EXTERNAL CONNECTOR #C21 So far, as SCSI controllers go, I have had a great difficulty in understanding the difference between SCSI-I and SCSI-II. When someone tries to explain it to me, their explanation usually has flaws. It had come to a point where I believed that the difference was that SCSI-II used more of the 50Pin connectors than SCSI-I, thus requiring 50Pin Centronics connectors for external devices-a theory that was supported by the standard SCSI-II Connectors now out there on other machines. The Rapidfire does not have an external 50Pin Centronics connector, but the standard DB-25 Connector that most Amigas use. Unfortunately, though, I do not have any external SCSI Devices at this point to test, either SCSI-I or SCSI-II. #C10 LIKES #C21 I like the general layout of the card. I like the fact that it seemed to have been designed to allow for future (adding memory and such) without having to remove the card from the machine. I like the fact that all of the connectors, aside from the SCSI Connectors themselves, are located at the top of the board, again, allowing for easy access to them without having to remove the card from the machine. I like the ease of installation-no pesky jumpers for setting IRQs and DMAs (I've been working with PCs too long!). The ONLY jumpers on the board were for setting the memory configuration (Which socket has what simm, if any,) which are easily set by the chart painted on the card itself. #C10 DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS #C21 Dislikes. Well, I don't have many, but I'll be thorough with the ones I do have. First is the DB-25 Connector for the external SCSI Connection. Not only do I dislike this because of the potential lack of support it offers for SCSI-II (which may or may not exist), I also dislike it as I have known many people who have used external SCSI Devices on Amigas, and have had as their principal difficulty the DB-25 to Centronics cable. Apparently, not all DB-25 to 50Pin Centronics SCSI cables are wired the same, and some can cause occasional problems (in particular those that come with NEC External CD-Rom Drives, which tend to lock up an A3000 after a while.) If it had been a Centronics connector, as is used by almost all external SCSI Devices, it would have avoided this problem altogether. Another problem I have with it is not with the card itself, but in the instructions in the manual for installing a hard drive on the card. While it may be safe to install the card directly to the card as the book indicates, I have always installed spacers between the hard drive and the controller card as a safety measure to prevent the drive from shorting out against the card. While the prospects of this are remote on the RapidFire, as the area set aside for the hard drive has no components (electronic parts) on it and is coated with a layer of resin to make it a non-conductive surface, it's just a matter of my own personal habits that I would have suggested putting spacers between the hard drive and the controller card. #C10 COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS #C21 Over the years, I have used/helped-people-with numerous Amiga SCSI Controllers, from many of the third-party controllers that came out before the Rigid Disk Block (RDB) standard (where an EEProm on the board would "AutoMount" a single drive partition, forcing the user to install mount commands into their STARTUP-SEQUENCEs to install additional partitions), to the A3000's on-board SCSI controller, which I only had trouble with on my old A3000 when I connected an external SCSI CD-Rom Drive to it (which was a common problem with everyone I knew who had A3000s and connected external SCSI CD-Rom Drives to them.) I have also had a good deal of experience with IDE and SCSI Controllers on PCs. Very recently, I upgraded a number of hard drives at work, as well as upgrading one of the PCs at work to use two IDE Drives off of the Pentium Motherboard (something I did not like doing-it was not fun, especially without documentation) to allow it to boot from both MS-Dos and Windows95. #Y+8 Having had this experience, I must say that I am extremely happy with the RapidFire. As for speed, I really cannot compare it at this time, as I'm still running on the A2000's 7MHz 68k processor, so I don't think any speed statistics I could provide would be fair to the Rapidfire (An accelerator is next in my A2000 system's upgrade list.) I like the AutoConfig feature, something that I wish Plug-and-Play on the PC could do (I think the idea of having to have drivers for auto-mount devices is silly.) #Y+12 #C10 BUGS #C21 #Y+8 None that I have found. #C10 VENDOR SUPPORT #C21 I have not needed any, so I cannot say. #C10 WARRANTY #C21 1 year from manufacturer against defects. #C10 CONCLUSIONS #C21 At this point in my life, I must state that the RapidFire is the Best, easiest to install and configure SCSI Controller I have ever used. #Seitenende #C10 COPYRIGHT NOTICE #C21 #Y+7 Copyright 1996 by Alexander W. Dorn. All rights reserved. This review may be freely used as long as it is not used for commercial gain without my permission. #Y+7 If you have any comments, you can E-Mail me at #Y+7 #C10 awdorn@primenet.com #Y+7 #C21 Thank you for your time. #Y+7 #C31 Alexander W. Dorn #Y+7 #C10 --- #Y+7 Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews