Category : HD Utilities
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RoInfo Page 1



ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ RoInfo Hard Drive Information Program ³
³ ³
³ August 12, 1988 ³
³ ³
³ Revision 1.0 ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ




RoInfo and this document (c) 1988
/-RoRoWare-/
by Robert Sink, Jr.
The Sixteen Bit Exchange BBS
(703) 342-6386











WARRANTY

The author makes no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including
without limitation, any warranties or merchantability and/or fitness for a
particular purpose. The author shall not be liable for any damages, whether
direct, indirect, special or consequential arising from a failure of this
program to operate in the manner desired by the user. The author shall not
be liable for any damage to data or property which may be caused directly or
indirectly by the use of this program.

IN NO EVENT WILL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING
ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM, OR FOR
ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.
















RoInfo Page 2




Explanation of RoInfo:


RoInfo was designed as a guide to ease in the setup/use of hard drives.
RoInfo provides total information on two of the largest and most used hard
drive brands today - Seagate and Miniscribe. Not to mention RoInfo also
gives technical assistance numbers in case you need to contact the
companies, minor definitions of all the encoding methods (such as MFM, RLL,
etc..) And also provides the "DEBUG FORMAT ADDRESS CODES" for low-level
formatting.



Technical information about RoInfo:


RoInfo was written in Turbo Pascal* 4.0, using TTT (Technojock's Turbo
Toolkit) for various windowing and cosmetical enhancements. RoInfo in
it's entirety is a very simple program providing the user with quick and
easy reference to perhaps some of the most needed and forgotten
information facing the continual use of hard drives around the country.


Definitions of terms used in RoInfo:

Since there was alot of information on these drives and so little space to
put it, I found myself making abbreviations for the statistics on the
table. Although the program gives a fairly understandable key, it is
going to be explained to you here on a more understandable level.


Model - This can explain a considerable amount to you about the drive.
Such as size, disk capacity, series, etc.. (explained further
on..)

Disks - Platters, these are the actual "storing" parts of a hard drive.
These spin and are read and wrote to by the heads.

Heads - Heads read and write information to the drive by reading the
platters (disks). There are usually two heads per every disk (one
reads the top, the other the bottom).

AcsTime - Access time. This is a general average of how fast the head is
able to read the data from the spinning media (disks).











RoInfo Page 3


(definitions continued...)


Trk2Trk - Track to track access time. This is similar to the regular
access time, but this is a judgement of how fast the heads can
read sequential data (track to track). This value is usually
considerably lower than the regular access time value.

AvgPwr - Average power consumption by this particular drive.

Size - This is usually defined by "HH" or "FH". HH being half height,
or FH being full height (two half height drives).

MTBF - Mean time between failure. This is how long the drive
can go before a failure in the hard drive is possilble
(measured in hours, and considering the drive gets normal use).

ActTyp - Actuator type. The actuator is the device that positions the
heads over the media. The actuator usually plays an important
part in the access time of the drive.

EncMtd - Encoding method that the drive is rated for. Such as MFM, RLL,
ESDI, or SCSI.

SctrPt - What the hard drive's sector per track rating is. This is more
dependant of the controller than it is the hard drive.

AutoPk - Merely tells if the drive will auto-park its heads if power is
removed or if it is not supported, then the hard drive parking
procedure must be assisted by a software sequence or program.

Media - Gives a list of the coating and/or oxides found on the hard
drive platters. Explains what kind of controller is most optimum
for this hard drive as well.

Megs - Explains the disks formatted capacity (i.e. free space after a
high level format.)


Help in understanding what the model number of a drive indicates:


Miniscribe information:

Miniscribe drives consist of 4 or 5 digit model numbers and in there, it
explains the disks' size, and capacity - as follows..

6128
³³³³
³ÀÁÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates the drive's unformatted capacity.
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates the drive's physical size FH or HH.

Drives beginning with 3's are half height, drives beginning with 6's are
full height, and drives beginning with 8's are 3.5's.



RoInfo Page 4



(understanding drive model numbers continued...)

Seagate information:

Seagate drives consist of 5-7 digit model numbers and in there, it
explains the disks' size, revision, and/or RLL, MFM or SCSI compatibility.

ST238R
³³³³³³
³³³³³ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates the drive is RLL compatible.
³³³ÀÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates drive's unformatted capacity.
³³ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates the drive's physical size FH or HH.
ÀÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ> Indicates "Seagate Technology".


Drives that have "N" prefixed to the end of their model number are SCSI
compatible drives such as "ST225N".

Drives that end in "-1" or any other numerical value indicate revision
number such as "ST251-1" which is a revision of the ST251 that is 10 ms.
faster than the older ST251.

Seagate drives beginning with a "ST1" are 3.5" drives. Seagate Drives
beginning with a "ST2" are half height drives. And Seagate drives
beginning with a "ST4" are full height drives.



Notes from the author:

This program's main purpose is to provide the most clear-cut information
concerning hard drives as possible. Though we feel the information on the
two drive brands (Miniscribe and Seagate) is complete and as accurate as
can be, there is no reason why other drive manufacturers couldn't be
included in future releases. If you happen to have some information (any
information) that could help us out, we'd definitely appreciate your
help. If you find any of the statistic and/or information here or within
to be no longer accurate or inacurate, we would appreciate you letting us
know as soon as possible. We may be reached on the following BBSs:

The Sixteen Bit Exchange BBS
24 hrs/day 7 days/week
(703) 342-6386 - my BBS

PhotoStar BBS
24 hrs/day 7 days/week
(703) 774-4667

Bedlam BBS
24 hrs/day 7 days/week
(703) 890-5733





RoInfo Page 5




Acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank Mike Overacker - SysOp of the PhotoStar BBS for
providing some of the information in compiling this list of statistics.
And hope he'll have other help in the future (other than parties)...


Robert Sink - SysOp of the Sixteen Bit Exchange
RoRoware




* Turbo Pascal is a registered trademark of Borland International, Inc.


[end of RoInfo document]


  3 Responses to “Category : HD Utilities
Archive   : ROINFO10.ZIP
Filename : ROINFO.DOC

  1. Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!

  2. This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.

  3. But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/