Subject: REVIEW: Rapidfire SCSI-II controller
From: [email-masked] (Doug Dyer)
Date: 21 Feb 1996 05:29:07 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Rapidfire SCSI-II controller

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	Adds SCSI-II support, RAM, and an extra hard drive bay to your
Amiga.  Comes with software to manage all your drive controllers (i.e.,
the rapid fire and the A4000 IDE).

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		DKB
	Address:	PO Box 930344
			Wixom, MI  48393-0344
			USA

	Telephone:	(810) 348-3755
	FAX:		(810) 348-3531

	E-mail:		None (but on compuserve they have a DKBSOFT forum)

LIST PRICE
	
	The going price (I'm not sure what list is) is a little under
$150 mail order, and $150 dealership (US Dollars).

	I supported my dealer and shoveled out the big whopping extra
$5 or so. ;)

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Zorro-II compatible bus is required (A2000, A3000x, A4000x).

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 2.04 minimum to run the provided rapidset software.
		Works perfectly under 3.0.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	A4000/25, 12MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM
	1 internal high-density floppy (standard C=)
	1 internal 125 MB IDE drive (standard C=)
	Kickstart 39.106 / Workbench 39.29

	SCSI devices tested:
	ZIP SCSI-I (including booting)
	RENO SCSI-II CD
	Quantum SCSI-II 730S  (including booting)
	Seagate SCSI-II 1080S (including booting)

INSTALLATION

	The installation of the card was handled by my dealer.
However the board looks to be straightforward.

	The software uses the Commodore Installer and is very easy to
follow.

REVIEW

	I had the dealer install a Seagate 1080 12ms SCSI-II card as
my main internal drive.  Like many A4000 owners, my IDE drive
sometimes will not boot and I have to sit there staring at a Kickstart
screen for a few minutes waiting for the drive to respond.  This
solves all that of course. :) The booting of workbench is now much
faster over the IDE drive.

	I then connected the following devices externally: ZIP, RENO
CD-ROM, and Quantum 730 HD.

	I ran the rapidset program and it scanned the bus, correctly
identifying all drives.

	The ZIP Drive:

		After setting up rapidset I rebooted, popped a new zip drive
		in, and nothing! (You gotta partition it first).  So I 
		brought up rapidset, selected the ZIP drive, did a format
		(and specified bootable).  I then could see the ZIP icon.
		I selected the ICON and did a format/quick (I tried the
		lengthy format but could not boot from it).  I then dragged
		all of my workbench partition on it and booted successfully
		from the ZIP.

		I also copied a 300K photoCD image onto the zip and viewed it.

		The entire time I had one transfer error copying 90 Megs worth
		of stuff, I repeated the copy and it worked fine.  I may have
		my max transfer too high, I don't know but I've been much
		harsher on it and cannot replicate it.

		I now have four zip disks and pop them in or out quite often.
		The workbench icons always show up and it always seems to
		work well.

		Btw, the ZIP drives are about as fast as the A4000 IDE drive.
		(It really seems that way).	

	The CD-ROM:

		I used the fastlane CDrive file system to test this out.
		Using the devs:Mountlist.ZD0 (that came with the fastlane) I
		modified it to point to the correct unit and device and put
		it in the storage/DOSDrivers area.  Now a double-click or
		"mount zd0:" will bring up the CD-ROM Icon.  (Actually
		I renamed it to be cd0 :)

		I put a Photo-CD in and viewed the pictures using PhotoCDAGA.

	The Quantum:

		After a partitioning of the entire drive as being mountable
		and bootable, and a format/quick the drive has been working
		fine.

		I successfully booted off this drive.

	The Seagate 1080:
		
		This drive works flawlessly and makes a good reliable boot
		disk for the RapidFire.  Access to the drive is very fast.

	The RapidSet software:

		This is the best hd controller software I have seen yet.
		It works in a modular fashion:  You can add, edit, and remove
		controllers.  You can also load or save your controller 
		configuration.

		It comes with config files for the A4000 IDE, A3000 SCSI, 
		RapidFire, and a few others (not fastlane).  Its great to 
		control all of your devices from one source.

		Once you select your controller all the devices on that 
		controller are shown.  You may get info, partition, edit the 
		device entry, or create a mount file for your devs (or 
		storage) directory.  The device window also allows you to 
		load or save the device config to a file and the RapidSet 
		software comes with a few.  I saved each of my drives' 
		settings to their own file (note this is not a mount file).
	
		There are also filesystem icons.  These config files and 
		file system icons may be dragged and dropped on rapidset 
		on certain windows.  I don't really make use of it as the 
		ASL requester is easy enough.

		You can also edit your mount file for a device or launch the ED
		editor from within RapidSet with the file in place.

		On-line context help is here but limited.  It is not in 
		AmigaGuide format and you cannot browse through all available 
		help, so its hard to get the big picture.
		 
		Rapidset has a feature called an emergency disk that you 
		must format and install.  Before quitting rapidset it asks 
		you if you wish to update your rapid-recover boot disk.  What 
		it is doing and how to make use of it is a mystery.  I wish 
		it got a paragraph in the documentation :(

	The RapidFire hardware:
		
		It has two SIMM sockets for adding any mix of 72-pin 1/2/4/8 
		Meg SIMMS 80ns or less, and a hard drive bay for a 3.5" drive or
		"hardcard".  I did not make use of either (Unfortunately I'm 
		stuck with some Fastlane 30-pin SIMMs).

		I can see how that extra drive bay would be very useful, 
		especially as most of us are stuck with smaller HD drives and 
		need their bay for newer drives.

		I have one internal device on the SCSI bus and three
		external.  All function well together.  The hardware provides
		(and my dealer used) an LED connection for your computer's
		front panel.  It will light up whenever the SCSI devices are
		accessed.  Very useful to show activity from the internal
		drives.  The problem is that the light will flick once a
		second as it apparently does some SCSI thing with external
		devices.  If you do not have external devices then the light
		will not do this.

DOCUMENTATION

	Rapidfire comes with the following documentation:

	* A small pamphlet (I'm not kidding) including a paragraph on
	installation, a page on adding SIMMS, etc.  Very sparse and
	much too little.

	* A small (1 page) readme file on the RapidSet program
	(again, really disappointing)

	* On-line, context-sensitive help from the RapidSet program.
	This is not an AmigaGuide file and you cannot browse through
	the documentation, only the help on the current window is
	available.

	The documentation quality is a severe drawback.  Luckily the
	RapidSet easy of use is very high.  

	You will want further reading material on the SCSI bus as
	the documentation is written for beginners but not enough to
	be useful at any level.

LIKES

	Works solidly with every device I have thrown at it.

	The RapidSet program works with all your controllers and devices,
and is very easy to use.

	RapidSet will create DOSDrivers/xxx mount files for you and place
them in either STORAGE or DEVS depending on whether you want automount or
not.

	Provides ability to mount additional internal drive onto the card.  

	Passthrough to connect external LED light on your computer's front
panel to the RapidFire SCSI bus.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	The performance suffers if you are accessing two disks on the card at
once (this is not a DMA device).  So formatting one disk (say, a ZIP) and
accessing another is notably slower.

	The documentation really needs to be beefed up.  The on-line help
should be in AmigaGuide format which would allow us to browse all the
documentation of rapidset at once.

	It's Zorro II (though in fairness the price reflects this).

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I had a used Fastlane which was faulty but I can compare some of the
features of the two:

	Fastlane documentation was far superior (both amount and quality).  
The Fastlane manual went into detail about the SCSI bus, mentioned
the performance issues on putting RAM on the card, etc.
	
	Fastlane came with disk caching software and CD-ROM file system
(CDrive).  The DKB comes with neither.

	The DKB RapidSet program is however the best controller software
around.  And in the end, this is going to be your single most important
bundle.

BUGS

	I found no bugs.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	I have contacted DKB for support regarding the Quantum 730 drive.
It was after my RENO CD-ROM drive in the chain and I couldn't boot with it
attached.  The DKB person was very impatient and made me feel like I really
shouldn't have called (Boy was this guy impatient).

	I then called my dealer and he reminded me that CD-ROMs also have
internal termination (There is a dip switch on the inside of the Reno).
Though it was my SCSI ignorance, this _is_ tech support ya know :)

WARRANTY

	The product contains a one year warranty on manufacturing defects.

CONCLUSIONS

	The bottom line is this is a solid product and its being supported.
It works great with ZIP's CD-ROMs, fast HD drives and its affordable.  Its
Zorro-II but the card still performs very fast (at the expense of your CPU).
Also, the RapidSet software is great.

	Rating: 4 stars out 5.

	Would give them 5 if they documented it properly.  Comparison Note:
fastlane gets a 5 out of 5.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
	
	Hey, this review is PD!

Doug Dyer - [email-masked] | ECL: embedded scripting
STI: voice (703) 329-9707         |   for the 8051 family
   make: fatal error: don't know how to make cheese

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