From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Apr 22 02:34:00 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id CAA25063 for questions-outgoing; Mon, 22 Apr 1996 02:34:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA25056 for ; Mon, 22 Apr 1996 02:33:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from msmith@localhost by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.9) id SAA02444; Mon, 22 Apr 1996 18:58:21 +0930 From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199604220928.SAA02444@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Atapi IDE cdrom support To: lehey.pad@sni.de (Greg Lehey) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 18:58:20 +0930 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, wbart3@ktb.net, questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199604220919.LAA06665@nixpbe.pdb.sni.de> from "Greg Lehey" at Apr 22, 96 11:19:18 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Greg Lehey stands accused of saying: > > > > Many people are using the FreeBSD ATAPI driver with no > > problems at all, however because it doesn't work with the vast majority > > of drives, and hasn't been heavily tested, it's generally considered > > wise to mention this up front. > > Isn't it about time to get a list of drives which are known to work? > Lots of people find themselves in the situation of wanting to buy a > CD-ROM drive, and for one reason or another they can't buy SCSI. It > would be nice to be able to say which do (and which do not) work. The problem here is that the average ATAPI CDrom has a product life of about three months. By the time that it's been bought and tested, it's been replaced by the "new model", which has its own unique quirks. In some cases, the same model name (can anyone say "Creative CDrom") has been applied to several quite significantly different models. > > Calling ATAPI drives "technology" of any sort is a bit of a joke. > > OK, so ATAPI is currently buggy, but in fact they're quite high-tech > devices. It's just a reflection of the market that they're so > unreliable. I suggest you look closely at the innards of a modern CDrom, or perhaps ask yourself how they can produce such an allegedly high-tech device with incredibly high model turnover at the sort of prices we're seeing now. The answer is simple - cut every possible corner. My old $200 Sony Discman works better than every one of the ten or so CDroms that I've spent any time with in the last year or so. A pity it doesn't have a SCSI interface 8) I have a small pile of Panasonic 2x mechanisms that have developed intermittent and gradually worsening read aberrations over the last year or so, which I can only attribute to fatigue in the small pieces of spring wire that hold the optics in position. These have lost so much of their original resilience that the optical assembly can be heard to bounce _off_the_disk_ when they get really confused. At this point, there's about a 50% chance that they will eject the disk, still spinning at full speed. How much would a better grade of wire have cost? Or another week testing the firmware before shipping? Obviously enough that they decided they couldn't afford it. (And _don't_ ask about floppy drives 8) > Greg -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] Collector of old Unix hardware. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[