🚀 go-pugleaf

bernd@finow.snafu.de (Bernd Hentig) wrote:

<snip>

>Well, next I tried to order an NCR 85xxx PCI SCSI Controller.
>I phoned up about 10 dealers (from the German computer magazine c't).
>50 % of the people told me NCR was 'out of business', 50 % told me NCR
>temporarily doesn't deliver SCSI adapters, but in March (or somewhere in the
>future, there were different opinions about it) there would be a new, 
>improved product line at new (higher ?) prices.

>So I ended up with my new 486/120 PCI/ISA board using an old AHA1542B ISA
>controller; you may imagine the poor performance this gives (about 0.8 MB/sec.
>on an IBM 31080 HD :( :( :( at a CPU speed of 60.45 bogoMIPS :).

I always did think the 1542 was somewhat overrated -- I get about 2MB/sec
through my lowly Future Domain 1680 and an IBM DeskStar -- but .8MB/sec does
seem unreasonably slow.  Something must be wrong.

>Does anyone (preferrably outside Europe) know about NCR's problems ?
>Are they going the way Wangtek already went or is there still hope that
>one day in the near future I may be able to buy an NCR 85xxx SCSI controller
>again ??? I don't want to buy an AHA2942, it's too expensive for me
>(about DEM 400 for a BIOS version).

NCR had been a subsidiary of AT&T until about a year ago.  It was sold to
Hyundai and now goes by the name "Symbios Logic".  I work with our disk
arrays, not our host adapters, so I'm not really up on all the details, but
you should still be able to buy NCR / Symbios Logic host adapters.  However,
I think a lot of them are sold by OEMs so you wouldn't recognize it as an
"NCR" by the name.  I think one such is the ASUS SC200, and I've heard
that DTC markets one, too.  Sorry, I don't know where you can get one, but
I think the Linux Hardware, or SCSI, HOWTO may list at least one place that
sells them.  Also, check out our Web Server, at "http://www.symbios.com/",
for all kinds of information on Symbios Logic products, including our
international distributors.

Please note that I am not a Symbios Logic spokesperson and this is not
an "official" Symbios Logic response -- I'm just trying to help out.

-- 
Don Dettke,  Software Engineering Consultant
ddettke@helios.ks.symbios.com