The Arsenal Files 1/The Arsenal Files (Arsenal Computer).ISO/cd-rom/hardware.cd

Text File | 1994-03-15 | 13KB | 214 lines

   ▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▌▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▌▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▌  Arsenal Computer - Topeka, KS
   ▐██▌ ▐██▌▐██▌    ▐██▌      BBS Ready CD-ROM Specialists
  ▐███▌▐███▌▐██▌    ▐██████▌  1-800-9CD-SALE  Toll Free Order Hotline
  ▐▀▀▌  ▐▀▀▌▐▀▀▌        ▐▀▀▌  1-913-234-4146  Tech Support
  ▐▄▄▌  ▐▄▄▌▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▌▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▌  1-913-234-8528  24 Hour FAX Line
                              1-913-234-9395  10 Line BBS


Running CD-ROM technology on your BBS is not as simple as we might like.
It would be so simple if only we could move the drive into the general
vicinity of the computer, pop in a BBS ready disc, and away it went, right?
Unfortunately, we all know different.  There are several factors to consider
when you decide to upgrade your BBS by adding CD-ROM technology.  The two
major factors, as you might have guessed, are hardware and software.

Hardware, or "the part you kick," looks at first to be the most daunting
challege, but really it's not.  If you are passing familiar with your
computer, you already know how to install cards, and if you can install
cards, you are 90% of the way done with a CD-ROM installation.  Your CD-ROM
will either come with one of three interface schemes:  True SCSI/SCSI-2,
proprietary, or "sound card."

Before you even begin your installation, perhaps we should pick out the
equipment to install, right?  (smile!)  There are a few things to bear in
mind when picking a CD-ROM for your BBS.  The first question I have of you
is: "Is this for the BBS only, or will you be using it as well?"  The reason
I ask this is that we can look for entirely different things depending on
your needs.

If you are getting CD-ROM technology for your BBS only, and not for your
own usage, then you can "cheap out" considerably.  For example, you do NOT
need the brightest, shiniest (and most expensive) drives to work on a BBS.
A BBS will not stress even the slowest drives out there, so why pay for speed
that you will never use?

However, if you are planning on using this drive for your own purposes, then
you need to look, not at what the BBS requires (because it will live with
anything that you give it) but in what YOUR requirements are.  Are you just
looking to access the shareware/adult discs that you buy for the BBS, and
occasionally look at a commericial title, such as an encyclopedia, or do you
want to use MultiMedia titles on your new toy?  You should look at the
equipment that is going to satisfy YOUR needs, rather than the BBS's, if you
are planning to use it yourself.  After all, as I have stated, the BBS will
work with whatever you toss it's way.

Ok, so now that we got that out of the way... the next question is, how many
drives do you expect to need on your BBS?  Yes, I know that most SysOps are
only going to be looking at one drive... for now.  But, if you seriously
think that you are going to be going multidrive anytime in the future, you
can save yourself a lot of headaches and cash by planning ahead.

Lets say you are only looking for one or two drives, and that's all you think
that you will ever need online.  No problem.. the Mitsumi LU-005 will work
for you well.  The Mitsumi costs around $200.00 street price, and uses a
"tray" to hold the CD-ROM.  It's a workhorse, and I've had some online almost
since Mitsumi started making them.  The problem with the Mitsumi is that they
use a proprietary card that cannot "daisy chain" (i.e. connect multiple
drives to one controller card), and you must use a controller card for each
drive that you put in one machine.  Each of these controller cards will
require that you assign it a hex address, an IRQ, and optionally a DMA channel
for the best results.  Needless to say, in a "crowded" machine, you might be
hard pressed to find one open IRQ, let alone two!  At least the current crop
of Mitsumi drives allow you to put the drive's IRQ settings up in the
computer ozone, say, IRQ 10 or 15.  I use both of those without any trouble.

Now, there are inexpensive drives out there that do "daisy chain" but they
are still proprietary interfaces that require that you put on another one of
the same type of drive in order to daisy chain.  So, if you are planning on
doing that, you might as well buy the darn thing up front, and see if you can
get a discount.  The problem in waiting is that it's entirely possible that
the drive will not be available when you get around to wanting the second
drive.  I've seen it happen far to many times in this business to want to wait
on something that important.

Perhaps the ultimate daisy chain drive is typlified by the SCSI interface.
SCSI and SCSI-2 allow you to put up to seven devices (not just CD-ROM's, but
hard drives, printers, scanners, etc.) on one controller card.  Such
controller cards are ususally "bootable" devices with their own BIOS chips,
but the better cards allow you to disable this feature, and use it simply
as a regular device.  Either way you use it, the SCSI interface is both
powerful, and when you carefully select the components, easy to use.  However,
there is a price to be paid for that power and ease, and I'll bet you guessed
it.. yes, hard cold cash.  SCSI cards may run anywhere from $75.00 to $350.00
(depending on features) and the drives usually run from $400.00 and up each.
Needless to say, this can make it quite an expensive proposition for a SysOp
to put one drive online, let alone multiples.  Usually, I recommend SCSI
single drives to those that are looking to do multi-media on their personal
systems, rather than spending that kind of money on the BBS for a single
drive.

One note on the SCSI cards... don't bother with the high dollar cards unless
you need their features for something else.  Even the fastest CD-ROM is a
heck of a lot slower than the slowest SCSI card, and you will not need to
throw away your money by buying a 16 bit or local bus card to control your
CD-ROM.  A good solid 8 bit card is quite adequate, and unless you are
planning to run your boot drive from it, there is not even a need to get one
that supports floppy drives.  Why pay for features that you do not need and
will not use?

One thing that I want to mention before going on... quite frequently, I see
netmail advertisements for "refurbished" drives cheap.  Although I am not
going to say one way or another wether or not you should buy those, please
bear in mind what kind of support you are going to receive on equipment that
was used, broken, and "refurbished".. I have been seeing one brand in
particular being advertised, and I personally wonder why there are that many
refurbished drives out there from this one manufacturer... (smile!)  You are
going to be better off to buy from an established dealer, and buying an
established drive.  Your BBS CD-ROM is going to be operating 24 hours a day
until the day it dies.  Why buy a drive that will be more likely to give you
trouble?

Well, lets say you think that you are going to go big time, and put more than
one or two drives online.  What are your choices?  Realistically, you have
a balacing act here... cost versus features.  While it is possible to daisy
chain several SCSI drives together, you run into the following problems:
[1] cost, as SCSI CD-ROM's usually run $400.00 each, [2] computer space, as
internal drives each require a half height bay, external drives are more
expensive and still pile up, and "drive towers" can bankrupt you, and [3]
the fact that you still can only effectively place seven devices on one card.

I am running 28 CD-ROM's online, using two computer LAN servers.  How did I
accomplish this without going broke?

Multichangers.  A multichanger is a CD-ROM drive that is built to hold several
CD-ROM discs at once, and then read the one that data is requested from.
Sounds difficult?  It's not, really.  Ever seen a music CD changer?  The
concept is similar.  While there are multichangers on the market built by
several manufacturers, there is only one worthy of consideration by SysOps,
and that is the Pioneer model.  The reason I come to this conclusion is this:
Other competing models hold fewer discs, and cost significantly more money,
and the only player that I've seen that holds more, costs several thousand
dollars per unit, and only has a duty cycle rating of 25%.  I'm sure that
your callers are going to love you telling them they can only download for
eight hours a day, right?  (smile!)

Pioneer currently makes three multichanger models:  The DRM-602x, the
DRM-604x, and the DRM-1804x.  Pioneer recently discontinued their older
DRM-600a model, which was perfect for BBS usage, but apparently Pioneer had
other designs.  The only different between the DRM-602x and DRM-604x is about
two seconds and $500.00 in cost.  If you are looking simply for your BBS,
ignore the DRM-604x.  Honestly, if you are looking for personal work as well,
why not buy the DRM-602x, and then buy a $400.00 SCSI doublespeed drive for
yourself?  It makes a lot more sense, if you ask me.  The DRM-1804x should be
a real "drool machine"... it will feature an 18 disc changer!

Each of these models require only a single SCSI ID... so, theoretically,
you can put up to seven of these models on one machine.  While that sounds
astounding, please bear in mind that if you are running a DOS system, as most
of us do, then you are going to be limited by your drive letters as to how many
you can reasonably run online.  As a general rule, expect that you can run
three six changers or one 18 changer on a single machine.  To push it beyond
that is to lose some of the capacity of the changers as you run out of
drive letters.  I'll cover a way around that in a later article that deals in
software.

Why do I recommend multichangers?  It's very simple... they are the most
cost effective way to put multiple CD-ROM's on a BBS, and they are the most
convenient solution to a number of problems, including space to put the
drives.  I have seen Pioneer multichangers work on BBS's that range from
single line hobby boards, to my 10 line commercial board, to a 260 line
board.  Tough is what Pioneer is all about.

Now, before you rush out to buy a multichanger, you will need to know a bit
about them.  They are not like normal CD-ROM drives, and they need to be
handled in a special manner.  A multichanger has several discs, but only
one reader mechanism.  Because of this, care has to be taken to insure that,
in a multinode environment, that no one is attempting to use the changer at
the same time that another person is attempting to use it.  Now, while this
may sound hard, there are a number of programs that will do exactly that, and
I'll cover them and how they work in a later article, but for now, let it
suffice to say that you should insure that your BBS or door software that
you will be using with your multichanger knows how to handle the unique needs
of a multichanger.

So, to wrap it up, here is a thumbnail description of the types of drives
available to the SysOp:

     [1] Refurbished drives: Unless you are an electronics tech, or have
     a high sense of adventure, I wouldn't bother with these.  A BBS
     environment is one of the most demanding uses you can put your
     computer equipment to, and there is no use in tempting fate with
     equipment that has already broken down once.

     [2] Propietary interface drives: if they are inexpensive, and you only
     need a drive or two online, give these a look over, but plan on buying
     all of them that you feel you will need at once, to avoid any possible
     disappointments later.  Proprietary interface drives have this bad habit
     of disappearing from the market.  When you buy on, check on wether or
     not it can daisy chain drives on one controller.

     [3] SCSI Single Drives: Don't bother, unless this is your only drive
     and you just have to watch those neato Quicktime movies on your player.
     These are just entirely too costly for normal BBS usage, and the
     added speed that one finds on them just isn't worthwhile.

     [4] SCSI Multichangers:  Pioneer's gift to SysOpKind.  Use these when
     you want to blow away any competition in your area.  However, don't
     waste your money buying the more expensive DRN-604x model, as the added
     speed isn't going to mean anything to your callers.

Of course, these rules are not set in stone.  You might find a good deal on
a single speed SCSI single drive, and there are doublespeed proprietary
interface drives out there that far exceed what you need to buy for strict
BBS usage.  My advice is to buy only what you need, and nothing more.

In later articles, we will cover software considerations for running CD-ROM's
in a BBS environment, and troubleshooting tips.  Until then, have fun,
and make your callers happy!