Subject: REVIEW: Oktagon 2008 SCSI-2 host adapter
From: [email-masked] (Michel J. Brown)
Date: 27 Mar 1994 23:07:29 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Oktagon 2008 (rev. 7)

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was updated on May 23, 1994.
	Search for the text "[UPDATE:" to find updated information.
	-Dan]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	Oktagon 2008 is a SCSI-2 controller card with up to 8MB of RAM for
the Amiga 2000/3000(T)/4000 models of personal computers.  The card also
functions as a hard card, with supplied mounting hardware.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:           BSC Broautomation AG
	Address:        Lerchenstraae 5
			80995 Mnchen 50
			Germany

	Telephone:      ++49/89/357130-0
	FAX:            ++49/89/357130-99

	E-mail:         None given, although I suspect that there is one.

LIST PRICE

	I do not know the list price of the product, but I paid $129.95 (US)
from my local Amiga dealer in Portland, OR, USA.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		A SCSI-1/SCSI-2 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch form factor hard drive
		is required for operation. I have installed a Quantum 1080
		Empire SCSI-2 hard drive on my controller card.

		[UPDATE:  "It is not.  I use the Oktagon 2008 with only a
		CD-ROM attached."
		Thanks to [email-masked] (Christopher Creutzig)
		for this update.  - Dan]

		No RAM is required on the card for operation, but ZIP style
		sockets provide for up to 8MB of Fast RAM. 1X4 ZIP chips in
		groups of four, either Static Column or Page Mode, are
		supported.

		All sizes of hard drives are supported, as long as they
		are as I described previously.

		The card is processor independent for compatibility, but
		a faster CPU probably means faster speed.

		Supports all current Motorola CPU's including the 68040.

	SOFTWARE

		The Oktagon comes with its own HD toolbox, on a single,
		autobooting, double-sided, double-density 720K floppy disk.

		Surprisingly, it works with all revisions of the AmigaDOS.
		All features are implemented with the latest revision of the
		OS, while some selections are ghosted out for older
		revisions (like AmigaDOS 1.3 and below).

		Full functionality is obtained with AmigaDOS 2.1 and above,
		yet even though compatible with AmigaDOS 3.0, it doesn't
		seem to take advantage of any of the newer features present
		in 3.0 as far as I know.  As the Oktagon is a Zorro II card,
		this may be the reason for this decision.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 2500 (rev 4.5)
	2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM
	Kickstart version 37.300, Workbench version 38.35 (AmigaDOS 2.1).

INSTALLATION

	Installation is simple, as the Commodore Installer software is
used.  I selected the "Expert" mode, and found most of the defaults to be
standard, so even the "Novice" mode wouldn't be much different. You can even
choose the language in which the installation will occur (English is the
default, while French and German are supported), and if you have AmigaDOS
2.1 or above, locales are also supported. The Amiga Style Guide is completely
supported throughout the entire installation process.

REVIEW

	The Oktagon 2008 is a SCSI 1 and SCSI 2 host adapter for the Amiga
2000 family of computers, and supports the A3000T, and the A4000 as well.
The card is packaged quite securely, and comes with the mounting hardware
for the drive, a short, but easily installable 50 pin ribbon cable, and a
power cable.

	The documentation is written in a "German first, English second"
booklet labeled "Harddisk Controllers & HD Installation Tools". It was well
written, and includes both a step-by-step and expert installation
description. Throughout the book were suggestions, warnings, and helpful
tips about hard drive installation, use, and maintenance.

	[UPDATE:  "The documentation unfortunately leaves out a lot of
	important subjects. For example, the terminators on-board are
	nowhere described. They are there, nevertheless, and as soon as you
	get an external drive attached to the controller, you will have to
	pull them out (the two black lines next to the connector for the
	internal drive), unless you do not use an internal drive."
	Thanks to [email-masked] (Christopher Creutzig) for this
	update.  - Dan]

	After I assembled the hard card, and powered up my A2500, the
installation software had an automatic mode by default (which I don't
recommend, unless you want one single partition), or can be changed to
manual mode (for creating multiple partitions). After selecting the
appropriate mode, you can set the number and size of partitions by using the
intuitive editor. One caveat here, though, is that you must specify the size
of the partitions in blocks, so a calculator is handy.

	Once the size and number of each of the partition(s) are set, then
you have to format each using the AmigaDOS "Format" command from a gadget
tool on the requester.  Depending on the size of your drive, this can take
quite a while for large drives, and seems more like formatting a large
floppy than a hard drive.

	After formatting your partition(s), you can either install AmigaDOS
(for which there appears to be no utility included), or restore from your
favorite backup program.  One nice feature is the ability to update the
AmigaDOS type through the corresponding utility. You can also save the RDB
contents to a file on a floppy should disaster strike, like a corrupted RDB
sector.

	All in all, this is a fine product from a supportive and growing
company, and I would highly recommend getting the card if you are in the
market for a fast and inexpensive host adapter.

DOCUMENTATION

	The printed documentation comes in a 136-page, perfect bound
booklet, with the first half in German, the second in English. My
congratulations to the writers for the excellent translation and low
spelling error count. The docs are very straightforward, and cover every
aspect of installation, use, and maintenance. All levels of expertise are
covered, and beginners to experts alike won't be disappointed or confused by
the nomenclature.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	I like the ease of use, the intuitive system that is completely
style guide compliant, and the use of many of the advanced features found on
the more recent AmigaDOS upgrades.

	About the only dislike I had was that in order to properly partition
off the hard drive, I had to enter the number of blocks manually. This
requires a calculator, or figuring out manually the size of the partition(s)
in blocks, rather than using the sliding type of gadgets found on other,
more intuitive installation tools, like Commodore's HD Tools.  My suggestion
to BSC: dump the manual entry of partition block size, and use sliding
gadgets with a readout of partition(s) size in megabytes.

	One surprise was the inclusion of the program GigaMem. This virtual
memory manager is included in the startup disk supplied, and includes the
documentation, but not the registration. I will give a review of GigaMem
v3.0 in a later installment, after fully testing and evaluating it. As it
sells for $79.95 (US funds) at my local Amiga dealer, it makes for the
frosting on the cake, so to speak.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I have owned three hard drive controllers and three hard drives in
the past several years, and the Oktagon compares quite favorably. As it
stands, it's easily the fastest and most compatible of the three controllers
I have owned. Unlike previous products, this one was up and running in less
than half an hour, which by my previous experience is a record. The external
25 pin SCSI connector is also a plus, and has provision for both snap-in and
screw-in connectors, while past controllers used only one or the other.

BUGS

	None noted.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	Full addresses and phone/fax numbers are supplied, but the hotline
for technical support is sent back only after registration card is received
by BSC. I am not associated with the vendor in any way other than being a
satisfied customer of BSC/Alfa Data.

WARRANTY

	Full one year warranty on parts, and the installation software.
Warranty appears to be transferrable, as no mention is made about the
transfer of title to warranted merchandise.

CONCLUSIONS

	This is an excellent product at a fair price.  Considering the
performance capabilities exhibited, I would hazard a guess that the faster
your machine, the faster the throughput. According to SysInfo 3.14, I get
2.5 MB/sec reads, and 2.48 MB/sec writes.  Diskspeed 4.2 also gave very high
marks, and I will UUencode the tabulated results to anyone with a valid
E-mail address, if requested. Seek speed showed my drive had seeks of about
6 ms from beginning to end of each partition, and 2 ms average seek from
adjacent tracks, and 4 ms for 8 random seeks on 90 percent of the drive. It
would appear that faster processors coupled with faster drives will produce
the best results, naturally enough, but faster than your average comparable
equipped host adapter. I'd give BSC and Alpha Data (the manufacturers) a
rating of 4+ stars out of 5, and a full five stars if they make the
appropriate changes to the partitioning software.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 by Dr. Michel J. Brown.  All rights reserved.

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:	[email-masked]
   Request information:	[email-masked]
   Moderator mail:	[email-masked]
   Anonymous ftp site:  math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews