Which is easiest? (was Re: UNIX pc 2nd drive modifications)

[John B. Milton]

In article <928 at icus.islp.ny.us> lenny at icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) writes:
>In article <9056 at chinet.chi.il.us> ignatz at chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) writes:
>...
>I'm sure if you want to only make the cables for two drives, then there
>is absolutely no difference.  Of course if John plans on distributing the
>appropriate cables (premade) with his premade board then that's a 
>different story ... So what do you say John?

There is likely to be so much variability in the lengths and positioning of the
connectors that I don't think it would be practical.

...
>with the few TTL chips and driver/receiver chips, then John's board is
>definately the way to go.   What is the expected date for the world, John?
>Last I heard you are just about to go beta with it ...  How long do you
>expect to beta-test it?

Right now it is taking four (4) hours of continuous time to build each board!
That does not include debugging. More practice and some better tools will help
a lot. Because of the connectors on both sides and lack of a solder mask it
would be difficult to apply mass production technology to speed things up.
Most of the time comes from the number of solder joints (318), and the fact
that it's packed into such a small space (2.4 x 3 inches). I do not expect
beta testing to last very long. I have had the board doing several all night
formats and intra-drive massive cpio -p type stuff.

John
-- 
John Bly Milton IV, jbm at uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm at osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu
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