🚀 go-pugleaf

Keith Bennett (kbennett@cpcug.org) wrote:
: I am trying to decide which SCSI card to use in a certain setup and
: would appreciate any advice you can offer.  Previously I have used
: the Adaptec 1522A, but MicroWarehouse informs me that it is now
: discontinued.
: 
: 3) Does it use PIO or DMA?  Is it a bus mastering card?  I remember
: reading a while back about the 1542, for example, only being able to
: access the first 16 MB of memory.  The result in OS/2 was that
: anything above 16 MB was used by the OS as fast swap space but was
: otherwise unavailable to the system.
: 

The card isn't bus mastering (the 1542 is). The 16 Mb memory limitation is
a limitation of the ISA bus, but I ran a 32-meg machine for a while that
way and was quite happy - there's nothing wrong with using the "extra"
memory as hyperfast swap space, since that's virtual memory, i.e.
more-or-less what the memory would do if it were directly addressable. 
 
Stuart

kbennett@cpcug.org (Keith Bennett) wrote:

>1) Is the 1522B available "bare"?  They will be used in OS/2 systems
>and therefore we have no use for EZ-SCSI and would prefer not to pay
>for it.

I purchased my 1522B bare from Insight for around $75 to hook up a Zip drive and
spare scsi hd's to an IDE system.


>2) Is the configuration utility where we can set the card's
>configuration part of the BIOS, or is it a DOS program?  If it is a
>DOS program, this would be a problem for us since these machines do
>not have DOS.  Can everything be set in this software that needs a
>jumper switch setting on the 1522A?

Configuration is done by jumpers on the card and DOS aspi drivers.  SCSI bios is
not required if you're not booting from the card.  Not sure of OS/2 support of
scsi, you may want to check the Adaptec web site for more info.

>3) Does it use PIO or DMA?  Is it a bus mastering card?  I remember
>reading a while back about the 1542, for example, only being able to
>access the first 16 MB of memory.  The result in OS/2 was that
>anything above 16 MB was used by the OS as fast swap space but was
>otherwise unavailable to the system.

Not certain if it's PIO or DMA.  It is not bus mastering which I don't believe
is critical for your application.

>4) Is the 1522A really a discontinued item?

Not sure.  May have been replaced by 1522B which is essentially the same card
with floppy support.

>5) In the past we've found the 1522A bare selling for about $75.  Is
>this about what we would pay for the 1522B?  If we can save more than
>$25 per card (street price < $50), we'd be interested in some of the
>other inexpensive offerings (1505, 1510?).

It's what I paid, though if you're buying more than one, you may be able to get
a discount.



Ray Hsiao
rhsiao@ix.netcom.com

In article <558jbg$q28@cpcug.org> kbennett@cpcug.org (Keith Bennett) writes:

>I am trying to decide which SCSI card to use in a certain setup and
>would appreciate any advice you can offer.  Previously I have used
>the Adaptec 1522A, but MicroWarehouse informs me that it is now
>discontinued.

We have both PCI and ISA host adaptors.

Check:   http://www.symbios.com/products/adapters.htm

pjk@aimnet.com (Philip J. Koenig) wrote:

>152x cards and anything with a lower number from Adaptec are all Polled IO.
>Some of the 152x cards have a jumper to enable "DMA" (not busmastering), but
>either it doesn't work or the drivers don't support it.

FYI:  I've used a 1522 in DMA mode under BIOS control and with
ASPI2DOS.SYS installed.  It worked fine for hard drives, but Sytos
Plus couldn't access the tape drive (a Wangtek QIC-150) reliably.