Date   : Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:23:49 +0000
From   : Fragula <fragula@...>
Subject: Re: 1MHZ SCSI/ATA board

Hi Phil!

Phil Blundell wrote:

> It probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference, to be honest.  Since
> the transports are different you're always going to need some level of
> translating intelligence, and once you reach that point it doesn't
> matter much whether you are doing SCSI->SCSI bridging or SCSI->ATA
> command set translation.
I've had a further thought on this today, triggered by my rather
indulgent (of whom i'm not sure though) DNS archaeological excercise, a
realisatin, that bluntly blows my socks off with suprise.

Cheap commodity IDE is actually more reliable than SCSI now! No really.
Looking (admittedly from ageing memory, without any attempt at a hard
statistic because (a) there is no time for that and (b) the answer is so
screamingly obvious, although I'd not considered it, but assumed the
opposite due to personal bias that I'm now overriding.) at the %of each
type deployed per year, against %failed  over the last 10 years, at
home, and at work, its now screamingly obvious that IDE drives are much
more reliable and less troublesome.

I'm personally breathtaken and gobsmacked by this. Its not what *I* want
to hear. But there you have it.

BTW. I've secured another 34 off 41256 120nS. Awaiting delivery in a few
weeks time, which I'll keep back for a while in case this is (as I
suspect it might be due to the era and what was available if nothing
else.) useable (possibly even overkill, depending on the clock rate) in
your 80286 copro (you have a CPU for that?). I can probably lay hands on
-100nS if really needed. If these are no good, let me know what is good,
and I'll throw these open to general (old machine curator) takers. No
panic. i'll expect them to arrive in early April.

Cheers!

M.