Subject: REVIEW: Power Computing XL 1.76Meg floppy drive
From: [email-masked] (Saleem Khan)
Date: 25 Feb 1994 21:44:52 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Power Computing XL 1.76Meg floppy drive  

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A drive for the Amiga that can read/write high density floppy disks.
Not 100% compatible with the Chinon drive, but it CAN read/write disks from
an A4000 internal drive.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Company:	Power Computing
	Address:	Unit 8 Railton Road
			Woburn Road Ind. Estate
			Kempston
			Bedford
			MK42 7PN
			UK

	Telephone:	+44 (0)234 843388 (Voice)
			+44 (0)234 840234 (Fax)

LIST PRICE

	XL Internal:  75 UK pounds + P&P
	XL External:  85 UK pounds + P&P.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Any Amiga computer.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS Release 2.0 or better

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 1200, 2MB Chip RAM.
	340 megs Western Digital Cavier (I think that's Cavier) :)
	AmigaDOS 3.0

	Amiga A500+, 2Meg Chip RAM.
	
	The external version of the drive was used for this review.

INSTALLATION

	Very simple -- just plug it in and go, if all you want to ever do is
read.  However, if you would like to WRITE to high density disks, then you
MUST install a software patch on your machine.  The patch is a 15K file that
seems to do a "diskchange" so drives that have floppies in them grind when
the patch is run (only when the patch is run -- once run, all is as normal).

REVIEW
 
	If you have ever bought the Power Computing 888* range of drives,
then you'll know what this drive looks like.  I was thinking of scanning a
picture for you folks and I'll have to see what Dan thinks about this.

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Dan thinks its a fine idea.  - Dan]

It plugs right into the external drive port on the Amiga.  One thing that
puzzles me is that if it is an CBM compatible drive (it is, as you don't need
to run the patch if you want only to read disks) why doesn't Amax 2 like
this drive?  (More on this later.)

	I have had this drive for a few months, and it's a good, solid drive.
I've had no real problems except it SEEMED a little less stable under
AmigaDOS 2.0 then it is now under 3.0.  I don't know, it could be me, but now
I get fewer errors with writing to disks.

	When I first got the drive, one disk in every 10 would fail (that's
high density disks, and they were branded).  Now that I run AmigaDOS 3.0
(A1200) and setpatch 40.14, the drive seems to be A LOT more stable.
 
	In use, it is faster than the internal drive in the A4000 because it
is a full speed drive.  It uses RAM chips and custom logic chips to buffer
the data so Paula does not have to lose any of the data.  Owners of the OLD
880* drives might be able to upgrade -- phone Power Computing and ask if they
can upgrade your drive.  It must be the Sony type:  you can open your drive
says Power Computing in the ads.

DOCUMENTATION

	Small booklet of "A5" size.  It would have been better if they
mentioned exactly what the patch does! :(

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	It's a shame a patch is needed -- good thing I have a hard drive!  I
used to run the patch from floppy disks and it was a pain!

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I know from magazine reviews that most reviewers say the KCS drive
is a better buy.  The KCS drive has more features (copiers, etc.) installed
and is supposed to be faster.  The KCS unit also has custom drivers that
allow even AmigaDOS 1.2 based Amigas to write/read all filesystems from
FFS to DCFS!.

BUGS

	Only the Amax one found.  If I insert a disk, it comes back and says
"disk is damaged."  Now if I remove the disk and put it back into the drive,
it works?!  Also, if I re-start the Mac from the menus, my external drive
won't function (put a disk in, and the Mac won't know that you did). 8-(

VENDOR SUPPORT

	Power Computing used to have a BBS (Gold fingers), but now it won't
respond.  I did mention the problems I had, and no-one helped (well another
user did).  So I don't know if they REALLY care too much.

WARRANTY

	The drive has a one year warranty.

CONCLUSIONS

	Overall it's a decent drive, if you can live with the quirks.  I can,
and it's also great when I have to back up the hard drive.  Recently, I tried
the freeware "SpareDiskDevice" package and it worked great.  High density
disks format to 1966K per disk.  The disks that would not format, I tried to
format from Directory Opus, and it formatted them fine (?).

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	This review written by Duggy.  Do with it what you like, but just
don`t say YOU wrote it. :)

	If you would like to amend it, contact me FIRST!

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---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
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