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Internet Message Format | 1998-03-27 | 11KB

From: [e-mail] (Oliver Knorr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Guru-ROM V6
Date: 20 May 1995 05:21:17 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett

PRODUCT NAME

    Guru-ROM V6

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    The "Guru-ROM V6" package is an upgrade for most Amiga SCSI host
adapters manufactured by GVP.  It consists of a new driver ROM on a small
adapter board, an installation disk and a manual.

    This review is based on the German version of the product; an
English one is available, too.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe
    Address:    Veronikastrasse 33
            D-45131 Essen
            Germany

    Telephone:    [phone]
    FAX:        [phone]

    E-mail:        [e-mail]


LIST PRICE

    DM 99.00, currently about $70 (US), plus shipping.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        An Amiga computer with one or more SCSI devices attached
        to a Series-II type host adapter from GVP.  This
        includes the "G-Force", "Combo" and A530 turbo boards
        and the A500, A1200 and Zorro-II host adapters (with or
        without RAM expansion, including the 4008).  The upgrade
        is not suitable for the A1291 daughterboard and the
        (very old) Series-I host adapters.

    SOFTWARE

        Like for all proper Amiga SCSI driver ROMs, Kickstart
        1.3 or newer is required.

        Because of several enhancements in the system software
        that might be relevant for owners of hard disks or other
        SCSI devices, I would advise to install AmigaOS 3.1.


COPY PROTECTION

    The installation disk and manual are not copy protected.  As there
is no need to copy the hardware, I did not check if it is protected in any
way. :-)


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    Amiga 2000, 1 MB Chip RAM, AmigaOS 3.1
    A2630 accelerator board with 4 MB Fast RAM
    GVP Series-II Zorro-II SCSI host adapter without RAM option
    bsc Memory Master Zorro-II RAM expansion with 4 MB Fast RAM


SCSI DEVICES USED FOR TESTING

    Quantum LPS340S hard drive
    Quantum LPS105S hard drives (two different revisions)
    Apple CD-300 / Sony CDU-8003A CD-ROM drive
    Toshiba XM-3501 CD-ROM drive
    Insite I325VM Floptical disk drive


HARDWARE INSTALLATION

    To install the adapter board with the new ROM chip, you have to open
your Amiga, remove the GVP card and locate the old ROM chip (which is always
in a socket).  Now you need to lever it out of the socket with a small
screwdriver and insert the new adapter board in this place.  Depending on
your configuration, you might also need to change some jumper settings on the
expansion board before you assemble your Amiga again.

    If you have more than one GVP SCSI expansion in your Amiga, you need
only one Guru-ROM V6.

    The whole procedure is explained in detail in the manual, including
some safety guidelines how to handle electronic devices properly.  Opening
your Amiga might void the warranty, and you should have some experience with
assembling computer hardware for this installation, so you may want to have
this done by your dealer.


SOFTWARE INSTALLATION

    The most important piece of software, the driver, is located in the
ROM chip, so there is no further installation necessary.

    The utility and configuration software for advanced use on the
installation disk can be used right from the disk or copied manually to your
hard drive using Workbench or the Shell.

    The configuration of all your software that uses the SCSI driver
directly has to be changed, because the new driver is called
"omniscsi.device" instead of "gvpscsi.device".  This affects for example
DOSDrivers or Mountlist files, low-level disk utilities like HDToolBox or
SCSI-direct software like CD-DA players.


COMPATIBILITY

    The manual includes a "Statement of conformance with the ANSI
standard X3.131-1986 (SCSI-1)" and says the driver ROM is fully compatible
with CCS and SCSI-2, too.  All relevant Amiga standards and programming
guidelines I know of seem to be respected.  For example, the driver is
trackdisk.device and scsi.device compatible, does Autoboot and Automount and
supports the Rigid Disk Block and SCSI-Direct standards.  Even unusual (but
sometimes very useful) optional features like TD_GETGEOMETRY,
TD_ADDCHANGEINT/TD_REMCHANGEINT and TD_EJECT are implemented.

    Obviously a lot of effort has been put into this product to make it
work with all possible hardware and software combinations.  The ROM has
special code for the different revisions of the SCSI chip used on the GVP
hardware, so you should not need to replace that 33C93 chip for special
configurations.  For the A3000 and A4000, some of which have hardware bugs
that may prevent DMA, the driver switches to a different transfer method.
The manual contains instructions how to upgrade faulty A3000s and A4000s and
switch the driver back to DMA mode to get best performance.

    Because some SCSI devices do not implement all options of the SCSI
protocol correctly, the driver tries to boot in the most compatible way.
Advanced SCSI options like parity checking or those that increase
performance, synchronous transfer and disconnect/reselect, can be switched
on for each SCSI device separately with a special utility.

    There are even several options to make the driver work with
SCSI-related software that would normally fail because it does not follow
Commodore's programming guidelines or makes wrong assumptions.

    All software and all SCSI hardware I tried worked fine, even without
any special configuration.


SPEED

    There is not much I can say about speed, because I did not have a
SCSI device fast enough for a reasonable test.  My fastest hard drive reached
1969 KB/s (measured with RSCP), which seems to be the limit of this drive,
but not that of the Guru-ROM.  I have seen reports on Usenet from people who
reached values well over 3 MB/s, near the absolute hardware limit of the
Zorro-II.

    The maximum speed you can reach depends heavily on your system
configuration.  As a rule of thumb, having RAM on the host adapter board
will increase the performance, and having RAM not reachable via DMA by the
host adapter (for example in the A4000) will decrease performance.  The
driver automatically selects the right transfer mode for your combination of
Amiga hardware and SCSI devices, but of course its performance cannot exceed
the limits your configuration imposes.

    To get the best results, you can tune your system with the supplied
configuration utilities by switching on some optional features your hardware
may support.  Synchronous mode especially can give a remarkable speedup if
you have a fast hard drive.  When playing around with the settings, I was
surprised to find out this might even be useful for slow devices like CD-ROM
drives.  Of course the transfer rate will not increase here, but with my
Toshiba drive I managed to increase the free processor time during
transfers, which gives a better overall system performance.


DOCUMENTATION

    The Guru-ROM V6 comes (in the German version) with a printed booklet
of sixty pages.  It consists of four sections.  The first one, called "user
manual," describes how to install the product and explains all options of the
configuration tools supplied on the disk.  For many users, this might be all
they need to read.

    The second section gives an extensive description of the driver's
features and performance, the AmigaDOS and SCSI standards and options it
supports, and much technical background information about SCSI and the
Amiga.  It also gives hints for optimizing your configuration, discusses
compatibility questions and explains in detail the problems of the Amiga's
internal serial port with Zorro-II DMA hardware and how to solve them. I was
very pleased to find this section in the manual.  It gives a lot of
interesting and useful information for users with some technical background.

    The next chapter answers many frequently asked questions about GVP
SCSI hardware and the driver.  Most questions are about problems with
specific hardware and software and configuration issues.  It's probably a
good idea to have a look at these sections if something seems to go wrong
with SCSI.

    The fourth and last sections names the relevant original
documentation about SCSI and the AmigaDOS and explains how to use the
"A-Max-II" emulation software with GVP SCSI host adapters.

    In addition to the manual, there is also a "readme" file and
documentation for some additional utilities on the installation disk.

    I could not find any detailed information about hardware issues like
SCSI cabling, internal and external connection of devices, termination or
termination power.  Although such information might be beyond the scope of a
driver's documentation, it would probably be a good idea to include it
here.  Knowledge about these things can't be expected from a normal Amiga
user, and I found the description in the original GVP documentation very
insufficient.


LIKES

    I was most impressed by the large amount of configuration options
and standards the driver supports and by the good manual.


DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

    I dislike the fact that this product is currently only available for
GVP SCSI hardware.  I would love to be able to use this driver for the
on-board SCSI host adapter of my A3000, too.

    As explained above, I would consider an introduction to SCSI
hardware in the manual a good improvement of the product.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    I have used several versions of the original GVP SCSI driver and
Commodore's scsi.device and know about the characteristics of several other
SCSI drivers for the Amiga.  None of them reaches the Guru-ROM's combination
of features, compatibility, conformance to SCSI specifications and Amiga
programming guidelines, configuration options, and support for different
hard- and software.


BUGS

    I could not find any bug in this product.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    For registered users who have sent back the postcard coming with the
package completed with their name and address, support is provided through a
fax number and a telephone hotline eight hours a day from Monday to Friday.
Up to now, I had no need to use this service.  To exchange defective disks
or hardware and for bug reports or other complaints, the user may contact the
manufacturer directly.

    Please note that I did some beta-testing of the Guru-ROM V6 and
therefore received the product for free.  You have to decide if that
qualifies me as an especially good or especially bad review writer.  I did
not get any money and have no other association to this product.


WARRANTY

    My German version of the manual does not mention any special
warranty for the product and states that no guarantee is made that it is
free of errors.  Any liability for damages resulting from defects in the
software is disclaimed.


CONCLUSIONS

    Without doubt, I think this is an excellent product.  It is not
really cheap, but considering the fact that this is not just a driver update
from GVP, but a rather complicated new product with special hardware, much
documentation and new utilities, I think the price is justified.

    As I have nearly no idea how this product could still be improved, I
rate it 5 stars out of 5.

    Anybody who is using a GVP SCSI host adapter and has problems with
his current configuration or just wants to get the best performance and most
features from his hardware, should consider this upgrade.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    This review is freely distributable.

- Oliver Knorr
  [e-mail]