CDC disk and 3650 Questions

[Dale Shanefelt <dale@JAZZ.ALCOA.COM>]

    Date: Wed, 11 Oct 89 11:25:10 PDT
    From: wbm@coyote.stanford.edu (Wally Mann)

    We have two Symbolics 3650's with dead CDC drives and are comparing
    two alternatives to breathe life into the machines.  

    One is to simply have the disks repaired, but we are concerned with 
    reliability of the CDC disks.  We have the smaller (approx 300MB) drives.  
    We have "heard" that the older CDC disks (which we may have) were 
    unreliable, but the newer ones are much improved.  
    Can anyone verify this statement?  If you have an old drive repaired,
    will it be upgraded to the quality of the newer ones?

There were timing problems with the "older" drive electronics, but those were
fixed by a certain revision level board.  I can't remember what the revision 
level has to be. 

To answer the other question, it probably depends on who does the repair on the drive.
That is a question to ask them.

    Our other option is to install Eagles on the 3650 (after upgrading
    the FEP).  For $500 Symbolics will provide us with an IFS tape
    for the Eagle.  Does anyone have a version of the renegade 
    Eagle formatting software (ifs.lisp) that will work with 3650's?
    They have a different software format than the 3600's.

It is my understanding that Eagles do not work on the 3650.  Is there some reason why
you think it will?  I remember being told that the disk interface on the 3650 won't 
support the Eagle even though both the CDC and Eagle drive use the SMD interface.

    Thanks,
    Wally Mann
    wbm@coyote.stanford.edu