Re: cdrom adddendum

["Brooks N. McNeely" <bnm@ornl.gov>]

At 01:43 PM 8/18/95 -0400, James Bush wrote:
>
>any  suggestions for a cdrom with a tp755ce ? prefer scsi drive
>
>forgot to mention, function under an os/2 warp environment, please
>
>jamie
>
I got an IBM PCMCIA SCSI adapter which came with OS/2 drivers. It cost
around $250 with tax and shipping. I just unhook my external CDROM from my
desktop system and use it mostly to install new software on my TP755C.
Several other vendors offer similar products, but I'm not sure about driver
support.

With this configuration I can attached several different SCSI devices
including a CDROM, and I should be able to use them simultaneously (eg tape
drive, external hard drive, R/W optical, etc). I've only used a CDROM thus far.

Several negatives which were common to most competitive products:

1.  Could not use CDROM to install Warp. Someone earlier proclaimed that
this was not possible with PCMCIA SCSI, but I doubt this assertion. The Warp
install includes two diskettes which boot Warp initially, then everything
else is installed from the CDROM. These two diskettes are pretty full, so
IBM limits the device support here because it can't put all the various
drivers needed to support more esoteric configurations.

I believe that I could copy the boot diskettes, add the appropriate drivers
manually, edit CONFIG.SYS manually, and install Warp from the CDROM. I
haven't had any need to reinstall Warp (still running great), so I haven't
verified this claim.

2.  There are restrictions on system use when running with the adapter.
Among these, you can't "hot-swap" or insert the card and use it without a
system reboot. Also I know hibernation won't work with the PCMCIA card
inserted - I'm not sure about suspension, but I don't think it works either.

My problem with competitive products was the reluctance of the vendors or
resellers to guarantee the products would work with OS/2. Most often they
just didn't know or weren't sure, and would make vague statements like, "I
_think_ it works with OS/2, but I'm not sure about Warp" or "We're working
on OS/2 drivers and they should be shipping any day".

Hope this helps,

Brooks McNeely