*BSD News Article 24105


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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.unix.osf.osf1
Subject: Re: Driver for Adaptec 274xT
Date: 17 Nov 1993 07:22:01 GMT
Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT
Lines: 103
Message-ID: <2ccjep$n5d@u.cc.utah.edu>
References: <CGDFu3.477@tfs.com> <2c09tq$mji@homer.cs.mcgill.ca> <CGEzD8.GJH@tsoft.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu
Keywords: scsi adaptec driver

In article <CGEzD8.GJH@tsoft.net> tedm@tsoft.net (Ted Matsumura) writes:
[ ... Re: Adaptec technical support ... ]
>
>The tech. support there is now pretty good.  I don't think any of their
>competitors have 800 numbers, 20 line BBS's, fax back, etc.
>

First of all, a nit to pick: a BBS does me little good if I can't install
an OS to run a comm program with... in any case, I'd prefer an xmosaic
or telnet'able BBS to one I have to call, anyway.

I like 800 support, but I'll pay for the call to get *good* support; to
me, it is not an issue, and certainly not a purchase point unless all
other things are equal ...and they are not!


Let me relate my Adaptec problems:

NetBSD had just come out, and since one of its goals was multiplatform
support, I decided to finally break down and buy a >*yetch*< Intel
based machine to use as a reference port and cross developement platform
(prior to that time, I was installing on miscellaneous unused 386 and
486 hardware).

I called Adaptech and asked them if their 1742 EISA controller could be
configured to turn translation off.  In retrospect, I should have asked
"do you know what translation is" first...


When my new system arrived and my shiny new AHA174x EISA controller was
installed, I found that translation could *not* be turned off, at least
with the EISA configuration disk provided, and that the EISA configuration
disk provided did not match their manual.

After several hours on the phone with support people, I was reassured that
you could indeed turn translation off, but that the 3.0 EISA cinfiguration
disk being shipped with their controllers couldn't do it, and they would
ship me a 3.1 configuration disk overnight (which, "lo!", should also
match my documentation).

After waiting 2 weeks (in case it was shipped UPS ground on the Friday
of the week I called -- I called on a Monday), I called back and asked
for an EISA 3.1 configuration disk.  Of course, no one knew what I was
talking about.  After another hour of my time (my time is worth a hell
of a lot of money), they agreed to ship out the disk Fed Ex.

To my astonishment, they actaully Fed Ex'ed the disk!  ...only two days
after they said they would!

Anxiously, I ran the configuration and found out that I could indeed
turn of disk translation ...by turning on *advanced* disk translation.

A call back, and an hour later, they admitted that no, they could not
turn off translation with the config disks, it must have been a
misunderstanding on my part, and it was a stupid thing to want to do
anyway.

I explained that I wanted to boot a protected mode operating system that
shared a disk with a DOS partition on it, and they said that there was
no problem doing that.  I patiently explained that, *yes* there was a
problem doing that, and tried to explain *why* there was a problem...
the following is a quote, exact as I can make it, from a suppoedly
UNIX support person at Adaptec:

"Look, I don't care!  I don't have time to have you tell me how UNIX
boots!"

I replied that UNIX, without a great deal of additional hacking, would
*not* boot on their controllers (yes, I had tried both SVR4.02 and SCO
UNIX, in frustration!), and aked what we could do to resolve the
problem... was there a way to turn the translation off by hacking the
BIOS?  I was more than willing to burn my own ROMs...

"No, there's not; it should work fine with *any* UNIX!"

A few more attempts...

A few tries to get his manager on the phone...

...him hanging up on me.


All in all, I think they are rude, arrogant, and totally unknowledgable.

If they "don't have time" to let me tell them how UNIX boots for free,
they ought to hire someone to tell them for big $$$ (given the number
of Intel UNIX implementations, there's probably less than 100 of us),
because they sure as hell don't know.

To date and to my knowledge, the *BSD implementations are the only ones
which can install correctly on translated drives without a lot of hacking,
and it's still very cumbersome.  Given the small number of UNIX and UNIX
like OS's that support mounting DOS FS's, I suspect even if you could
get installed on a translated drive, you would have a hell of a time
mounting DOS FS's other than the first partition, and then you'd have to
be lucky anyway and hit a translated/untranslated cylinder boundry (ever
wonder why so many people recommend 0 and 1 as offsets?)..

Unless there is an obvious change of attitude, I *will not* be doing
buisness with Adaptec in the future, nor will anyone whose purchasing
decisions I can influence by recounting my experiences.