🚀 go-pugleaf

Maurizio Oliva (mo5027@cor) wrote:

: On 28 Nov 1995, Evan Cheng wrote:

: > I need to find a mailorder place to purchase NCR53c810 chip based SCSI
: > controller. None of the larger mailorder places seem to order them. The

: I am sorry to confirm that nobody seems to have that controller anymore. 
: The computer shopper of december listed only three vendors and all the 
: other I asked for did not have it. Some even told me that NCR has been 
: discontinued. Actually one of them quoted me a price of 230 USD (after 
: printing a mere 95 on their advertizement)!!!

First, the rights to what's known as "the NCR 53c810 controller" have 
been bought and sold several times in the last couple of years, so it 
could be that the vendor with whom you spoke was confused over this 
matter.  The last I'd heard, the chip itself and boards using it were 
still available, but of course my information could be outdated.  If 
memory serves, the latest owner of the 53c810 family is Symbios, but my 
memory is telling me it's foggy on this, too.  ;-)

Second, by writing "that controller," it's unclear whether you mean a 
specific controller board or all controllers based on the 53c810.  MANY 
manufacturers make (or, if your information is correct, made) boards 
based upon the 53c810, so even if one particular manufacturer has gone 
out of business, that shouldn't seriously affect the overall supply of 
53c810-based controllers.  These controllers also are not all exact 
clones of one another.  Some are actually integrated into PCI 
motherboards.  I've heard of one el-cheapo 53c810-based controllers that 
had terminators SOLDERED IN PLACE, the net result being that this 
particular board supported EITHER internal OR external devices, but not 
both.  Needless to say, other 53c810-based controllers are more flexible 
in this respect.

--
					--Rod Smith
					  RSMITH@PSYCH.COLORADO.EDU