Re: Zip for ThinkPad's

[Steve Parker <sparker@torgo.punk.net>]

On Sun, 21 Sep 1997, Paul Khoury wrote:
> >I've contemplated just running an external 3.5 gig hard drive, via parallel
> >port.  Anyone doing so already?
> 
> And for anyone who is doing that, or running other parallel port
> devices, are they really slow?  I would only expect 8-bit speed, as
> the parallel port is only 8 bit anyways.

  I have a 1GB Quantum fireball 1080 [one of the fastest 1GB drives ever]
stuck in an external parallel port case.  I can get about 670K/sec
throughput, *but* my TP560-120 can barely do anything else while that is
going on.  It is so slow it hurts.  Really hurts.  The parallel interface
manufacturer claims the interface can do up to 700K/sec, so I am basically
right at the limit.  If I slow down my parallel port the CPU load goes
down, but so does the throughput.

> Also, does anyone know if these devices are compatible with higher
> end OSes such as OS/2 and various unixes?

  My case/parallel adapter supports Windows/DOS/Win95 and OS/2.  The case
was $45 or so, so I can live with its shortcomings.

============================================================================
==== Steve Parker ==== San Luis Obispo, CA ==== Multi-OS & Multitasking ====
============================================================================