Never really know what to call this as the names FastTrak, Xetec,
SA-5, SH Series, FT5_000 are all referenced on the kit. What I do
know is that the SCSI Host Adaptor connects to the side of the
Amiga 500 and the hard drive unit by Xetec is the bigger box that
you can sit a monitor on. Inside the hard drive unit are two SCSI
drives and they appear to be both working.
The unit has never worked from the day it arrived. It has so many
bodged screw fixings in the base and looks like it had some very
heavy use in its day. When connected and the Amiga 500 switched on
the hard drives kick into gear though since I last used it the
green light has broken. The drives will not stay static in the unit
as the slightest movement causes them to slide out of place. The
thing is a law unto itself and I can only assume that something
has gone wrong in the adaptor. Just don't know.
The fascia on the Xetex drive unit has gone very yellow even though
it is stored out of light. Not a great problem in truth. I would
love to see what is on the drives and plan someday to hook them up
to another computer system.
I shall quote from Amiga Computing now ..
The Xetec FastTrak is an impressive piece of hardware. It consists
of a small interface unit and a large CD player sized box containing
the hard disc itself. The host adaptor is a proper SCSI interface
which fits very tightly to the bus on the side of the 500.
Now this interface ( pronounced scuzzy, scoozy or sexy, depending
on the time of day ), means that other drives, tape streamers and
strange optical drives can be connected with confidence. Up to seven
more SCSI devices may be added, assuming you have the money to spend.
Like I say the unit doesn't work, though I haven't tried that hard.
For me the box part is way too big and the cable connect gets in the
way of everything. It is a nice thing to have though not very
useful in truth.
Whilst reading the article in Amiga Computing I came a cross the
article about the Checkmate. On the one Checkmate I have, I have
not one but two SCSI external drives. That comment about hard drives
in the article, or drives in general is kinda reinforced by the
advert in the mag, especially the 40MB drive costing £499. That's
like £13 a MB ... megabyte not gigabyte. Amazing when you compare
a mini SD card with the electronics inside the Xetec it is quite
mind boggling. That's progress for you.
V I D E O
Xetec SCSI Drives
Just to show they are working
Xetec - FastTrak SCSI Host Adaptor
Xetec Fast Trak Boot Disk
Xetec Fast Trak [ Copy ]
Appears to have a modified Workbench disk
Mostly the changes are to access the hard drive
Readme File for my benefit 19%
Readme File for my benefit 37%
Readme File for my benefit 60%
Readme File for my benefit 79%
Readme File for my benefit 98%
