🚀 go-pugleaf

Warwick Allison (warwick@cs.uq.oz.au) wrote:
: I'd like to hear those opinions.
: 
: I have been looking a tape back-up units, and my feeling is "old technology".
: 
: The *ONLY* use for a tape-backup unit is using tapes to backup file.
: 
: But a floptical could be used for less-often run programs, or other
: files that, while they don't really need to live on my hard-disk,
: I wouldn't want them OFF it and stuffed away on a tape somewhere.
: 
: My current set-up is an ICD host adaptor, a SCSI drive, and power
: supply (I opted against the "wire running from the ST's power-supply
: set-up for just this reason: adding more devices) - what do I
: need to add - just a floptical drive???
: 
: Any help would be ENORMOUSLY appreciated.
:

From what I gather, the floptical would be a good choice for you.
Although they're a bit more expensive than a tape drive (at least over
here) they do have the advantage that you can actually run stuff from
them - sort of halfway between a hard drive and a floppy. The disks
themselves are pretty cheap (about #15-20 for 21 meg), and I've heard
that 40 and 80 meg disks are in development, although if you'll need a
modified drive for this is unclear. Oh, and of course you'll be able to
run 720k and 1.44M floppies on it :)

The fact that they are slower than floppies is all that is putting me
off - I don't have an existing hard drive, and I don't think a floptical
would be up to the job of running gcc/mint/tcsh/latex and whatever at a
reasonable speed. I do like the idea of keeping related bunches of
programs all on one disk though - just pop in the disk corresponding to
what you're going to do tht session.

: Oh, also - whatever I do, it will need to be portable to the Falcon -
: I know the ICD adaptor will be pretty obsolete for the Falcon, since
: it has SCSI-II built in, but I'd like to avoid buying anything else
: that won't transport across.

I think they are. It should simply be a case of plugging it in, but I
suspect you'll need a PSU, and probably a case too.

Adam