home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
-
- Tips on getting the Siemens 100-8 SSDD 8 inch
- disk drives running with the Morrow DJDMA disk controller.
-
- Two problems arise when configuring the 100-8 for the DJDMA. The first
- is the jumper settings, and the second is the CP/M BIOS drive parameter tables.
- The DJDMA needs some odd (compared to other controllers) jumper settings, and
- the 100-8 drive parameters (step rate and settling time) are not always what
- Siemens' (now World Disk Drives, Irvine, California) documentation would lead
- one to expect.
-
- Jumper Settings
-
- The DJDMA requires the following characteristics of its disk drives:
-
- 1. Radial (daisy chained) drive select
- 2. Head load when drive is selected and door is closed
- 3. In-Use LED on from drive select
- 4. Stepper power from head load
- 5. Soft sector
- 6. Terminating resistors on the last drive in the daisy chain
-
- For the 100-8 the approriate jumper settings are:
-
- Rad Sel 0 in drive A, 1 in drive B
- Rad Step 2
- 12 yes
- 16 no
- 18 no
- 20 yes
- 22 yes
- 24 yes
- 34 yes
- 36 yes
- A no
- B no
- C no
- D yes
- E yes
- F no
- G yes
- H no
- J no
- K yes
- L yes
- M no
- RI yes
- RR yes
- V no
- SS yes
- HS no
- Term Res. no on drive A, yes on drive B
- Act LED U no
- S no
- R no
- H yes
- SE yes
- TE no
-
- BIOS disk parameters
-
- The Morrow BIOS comes configured for Shugart 800/801 drives. They
- require 8 millisecond step and settle times. The Siemens documentation
- says that the 100-8 needs 3 to 8 milliseconds "access" (by which I think
- they intended "step") time and 14 milliseconds settling time. I've got the
- feeling they reversed the numbers. 8 milliseconds was sufficient settling
- time under all conditions. I tried 8 milliseconds as the step parameter and
- the operation was erratic. More often than not the drives couldn't keep up
- with the step rate and would fail the track seek. I then changed the step
- parameter to 14 milliseconds and all worked fine. I tried reducing the step
- parameter in 2 millisecond increments and all worked fine down to 10
- milliseconds. To be safe, start with 14 milliseconds and if you're
- adventurous, try reducing it until you start getting slightly erratic seeks.
- You can tell you've gone too far if, instead of getting a clean head movement
- directly to the requested track, it tries more than once, returning to track
- 0 in the process. Back off 2 milliseconds and your drive will be seeking as
- fast as it can. I don't know if stepping the drive at faster than 14
- milliseconds hurts the long term reliability of the drive, so if you're
- worried about such things, leave it at 14. I used DU-V87.COM (available on
- many RCPM systems) to help pinpoint the seek problems. It allows you to
- command the head directly to any track.
-
- Len Moskowitz
- Fair Lawn, N.J.
- October 1984
-