Dear RISC User,
There are now a number of hard disc upgrades for the 310, all appearing to offer similar features at varying prices. Has RISC User tested any of these? Also, what interface do these hard discs use? Is it SCSI?
Kevin Long
RISC User has not as yet published a comparative review of hard disc upgrades, but we may do so in a future issue. As you say, most appear to offer very similar features and performance. The two main criteria that can be used as a comparison are the storage capacity of the drive, and the speed of access. This latter value is normally measured by timing a series of standard benchmark programs which perform various file operations. A less obvious difference between upgrades is the ability to support a second hard drive. For example, the Acorn upgrade can be extended simply by connecting an additional hard drive to the podule, while the Watford Electronics upgrade doesn't offer this feature. It does not follow, however, that the more you pay the more features you get, so you should study all the options before buying.
On your second point, the interface used by the hard drives is a standard interface called ST506. This is basically a hard disc equivalent of the interface used by all floppy disc drives. The podule supplied with the hard disc upgrade contains a disc controller which allows the computer to connect to the ST506 interface. SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) is another interface which is found on some hard drives. It offers the advantage that it defines a set of commands for accessing devices, as well as specifying how they are connected. This means that, for example, a hard drive could be replaced by a tape streamer, or even a CD ROM, and the software will still be able to access it totally unaware of the actual hardware present. We believe that a SCSI interface podule for the Archimedes will be released in the not too distant future, though no details can yet be given.
David Spencer
Dear RISC User,
I have a few questions about the RISC User ADFS Menu. I have been using this for some time now, but there are one or two things that I can't get it to do. Firstly it is infuriating that although it will run any file by double-clicking on it, you cannot just load a program without running it. Secondly it seems to hang with a read error message when clicking on certain file types; and thirdly I have problems making out some of the colours in the revised menu, and would prefer a mono screen - is there a way to achieve this.
Arch Busby
First of all there is a way to LOAD a program by double-clicking - just double-click with the right-hand button. You may also be interested to know that double-clicking with the middle button has a very special effect too. For details, see RISC User Volume 1 Issue 3.
We suspect that your 'hanging' errors are caused by clicking on files whose file types cause the file to be loaded into RAM at an unsuitable point, so corrupting the machine's stack or whatever. In fact the effect of double-clicking (with left or right-hand buttons) on any file is not determined by the ADFS Menu module at all, but by the aliases set up in your machine (either by default or by yourself). You can determine what happens to any type of file when you double click with the left hand button (i.e. run) or with the right hand button (i.e. load) by setting up run and load aliases. See RISC User Volume 2 Issue 4.
Altering the colours in the new version of the ADFS Menu is a relatively easy matter. A short article in RISC User Volume 2 Issue 1 explains how to do it. With a little experimentation, you should be able to render the whole menu in blacks, whites and greys.
Lee Calcraft