SCSI cables and 3rd party drives for RS6k

[Paul Turner]

Sometime back I posted a request for SCSI cable info for the RS6000,
this is the cable from the SCSI board to the first SCSI device.
It turns out that these cables are made by AMP and consist of
a mini centronics-like connector at the controller end, and
a regular centronics at the device end. I would guess that the
high cost ($330 from IBM) is due to the single source and 
price gouging by IBM. National Peripherals Inc. (NPI) lists the
cable for $200 (also from AMP), they refused to sell us the
cable alone (no big deal, see below). No doubt people have by now
succeded in constructing cables, so prices and availability should 
improve.

About third party drives (which is what prompted me to inquire
about the cables) I wish to relate a very pleasant experience
we had with NPI for those interested in purchasing third party drives.
We took a chance on our last 2 RS6000s (320s) and ordered them with
no SCSI drives (just the controller), this meant no pre-loaded
OS (and at the time, no supplier for the necessary drives). 
The machines arrived and a phone call to the supplier from
whom we originally ordered the drives indicated that while they
could supply the drives, the cables would not be available for
4-6 weeks. A followup to my post concerning SCSI cables mentioned
NPI, so a hasty call to NPI on a Tuesday got us drives and cables
by Friday (2 CDC wren VIes). The installation of AIX went without
a hitch (subtracting out the fact that I loaded it from 3.5 inch
floppies), the machines were in use the day the drives arrived.

I have no financial interest in NPI, I'm simply a very satisfied 
customer.

--Paul
Paul J Turner
pturner at ese.ogi.edu