28 Apr
2005
28 Apr
'05
11:32 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I don't know for certain about the RA73, but my
RA70 has a
front panel that attaches via a low-pin-count ribbon cable. I
am not aware of any local configuration jumpers, but I have to
admit that I've never looked. In any case, the drives do come
up with sensible defaults if no front panel is attached, but
AFAIK, if you want to hook multiple drives up to the same
controller, one would need a front panel, at least on the RA7x
series. With the other drives that I've worked with, this
isn't a problem because the front panels are integral*.
The RA7x series all accept some kind of OCP, but they all
(or at least all the ones I have seen) have some way of
configuring them without the need for the OCP. I'm pretty
sure all the manuals I have scanned are available via Manx and
that should cover the RA70,RA72 and RA73.
* except for this one RA90 front panel I have in my
parts bin
that's been attempting to attract a compatble drive for years
without success. I'm still "stuck" with RA81s, an RA60, and a
couple of RA70s... nothing SDI with massive capacity (massive
from a VAX, not PDP-11 standpoint).
The biggest SDI drive I recall (in capacity) was the RA74 which
was a whopping 3.5GB - not a whole lot to shout about! Much
lighter than the 1.5GB RA92 though!
Antonio
--
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Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org