Hm. First thank you for writing the NCR-BIOS. It never let me down while deploying about 200 of them for SMBs. I had Adaptecs at the same time which were annoying to integrate. And there is the thing, from my point of view Adaptec did things differently while setting the pseudo-standard in the PC-world. There was this group-think that if SCSI then
Adaptec, which i never understood, because they could be underwhelmingly fiddly to integrate and were expensive.
As to the C/H/S low-level-format, NCR could read some Adaptec formatted drives, while Adaptec couldn't read NCRs.
Asshole move. Never mind.
As for the BSDs being behind? Not all the times.
I had an Athlon XP 1800+ slightly overclocked by about 100Mhz to 2000+ in some cheap board for which i managed to get 3x 512MB so called 'virtual channel memory' because dealer thought it was cheap memory which ran only with via chipsets. Anyways 1,5GB RAM about twenty years ago was a LOT!
With Linux of the times i needed to decide how to split it up, or even recompile the kernel to have it using it at all.
No real problem because i was used to it, and it wasn't the large mess it is today.
Tried NetBSD. From a two or three floppy install set. I don't remember the exact text in the boot console anymore, just that i sat there dumbstruck because it just initialized it at once without further hassle. These are the moments which make you smile! So i switched my main 'workstation' from Gentoo to NetBSD for a few years, and had everything i needed, fast and rock solid in spite of overclocking and some cheap board from i can't even remember who anymore. But its BIOS had NCR support for ROM-less add-on controllers built in. Good times :-)
Regarding the CD-ROM situation, even then some old 4x Plextor performed better than 20x Mimikazeshredmybitz if you wanted to have a reliable copy.
As to sharing of Disks by different OS? Always bad practice.
I really liked my hot-pluggable 5 1/4" mounting frames which
took 3,5" drives, with SCSI-ID, termination, and what not. About 30 to 40USD per piece at the time.
As to the C/H/S low-level-format, NCR could read some Adaptec formatted drives, while Adaptec couldn't read NCRs. Asshole move. Never mind.
As for the BSDs being behind? Not all the times. I had an Athlon XP 1800+ slightly overclocked by about 100Mhz to 2000+ in some cheap board for which i managed to get 3x 512MB so called 'virtual channel memory' because dealer thought it was cheap memory which ran only with via chipsets. Anyways 1,5GB RAM about twenty years ago was a LOT! With Linux of the times i needed to decide how to split it up, or even recompile the kernel to have it using it at all. No real problem because i was used to it, and it wasn't the large mess it is today.
Tried NetBSD. From a two or three floppy install set. I don't remember the exact text in the boot console anymore, just that i sat there dumbstruck because it just initialized it at once without further hassle. These are the moments which make you smile! So i switched my main 'workstation' from Gentoo to NetBSD for a few years, and had everything i needed, fast and rock solid in spite of overclocking and some cheap board from i can't even remember who anymore. But its BIOS had NCR support for ROM-less add-on controllers built in. Good times :-)
Regarding the CD-ROM situation, even then some old 4x Plextor performed better than 20x Mimikazeshredmybitz if you wanted to have a reliable copy.
As to sharing of Disks by different OS? Always bad practice. I really liked my hot-pluggable 5 1/4" mounting frames which took 3,5" drives, with SCSI-ID, termination, and what not. About 30 to 40USD per piece at the time.