🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bu34nA.3FB.2@cs.cmu.edu> ralf+@cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
...I wrote...
>} IDE (systems) could already be windows 32 bit disk access compatible. 

>They probably are, since they emulate the WD-1003 controller that the Windows
>32-bit disk code was written for.  I'm not sure I'd want to be the first
>person to try it, though.

  Windows is pretty good about this.  Select the box in the 386 enhanced menu
amd unless you are able to 'save' the configuration (on exit), the 32 bit
selection will 'disappear' next time it starts...

> IDE won't max out for a while...if the drives themselves keep getting faster

   I don't see how the drive can get much faster.  Good access time are already
around 10 mS, and we are talking physics.  Mechanical parts, moving...

>The more immediate limit to IDE (and ESDI) is likely to be the size of the
>drive.  If (as I suspect), the WD-1003 only permits 16 heads, then the
>limit on IDE is 504 MB (1024 cylinders * 16 heads * 63 sectors/track); even
>if a full 64 heads are available, the limit is less than 2GB--a size which
>is already readily available even if not yet cheap ($3000+) in SCSI

The WD-1003 spec does max out at 16 heads, but that isn't something cast in
stone.  A new backwards compatable standard shoud be in the near future...
The 1024 cylinder limit is a dos limit, ide and esdi controllers don't
have that same problem because the actual drive geometry is hidden
(same as scsi).  This makes the standard max size up around
1024 cyl x 1024 heads x 1024 sectors 

Even then, the sisze of drives is limited to the growth in systems.  A whole
new approach will ne needed soon...

al



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Al. Michielsen, Crouse Hinds School of Management, Syracuse University
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