[Info-vax] Compatible DVDs

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <MPG.252468a29693bbb59896aa at news.verizon.net>, John Santos <john at egh.com> writes:
>
>In case anyone has never noticed, the HP web site is
>"Hopelessly Pathetic".
>
>I'm trying to configure a system for a customer (actually,
>we've already done so, the order is ready to go in, just
>trying to cross a few t's.)
>
>Amongst other things, it consists of an rx2660 (VMS, of
>course) and 3 Proliant DL165 PC's (two running Solaris
>X86 and one Linux, for various historical reasons.)
>
>Anyway, all 4 boxes have writable DVD drives, and I'm
>trying to tell the customer what kind of DVD media to
>get, DVD+R, DVD-R, etc., so naturally I want to specify
>something that will work on all 4 drives.
>
>The rx2660 has an AD143A drive and the 3 DL165's have
>447891-B21 drives.
>
>There appears to be *absolutely no* information on this
>subject on the HP web site.  The closest thing is the
>quick-spec for the rx3600 (different server, but the same
>drive), which says HP-UX (some version) only does DVD+R's,
>but it isn't clear if this is a drive restriction or an
>HP-UX restriction, and if it is an HP-UX restriction, if
>it only applies to some old version of HP-UX or to the
>current version (not being familiar HP-UX version numbering,
>lack of "or later" or "or earlier" or "before version xxx"
>in the note renders it useless.  But if it applies to *all*
>versions of HP-UX, why the hell did they bother to include
>a version number in the note?)
>
>Almost all the links Google found were for places willing
>to sell me the various drives, but none of the ones I checked
>had any technical info; if anything, they just pointed me
>back to the HP site.
>
>The HP links Google found when I added "site:hp.com" either
>pointed to a useless picture of the drive (with all the 
>documentation links resulting in "No documentation found"),
>or to sales pages citing prices in British Pounds.  (I'm
>in the USA?!?)  Or to more non-documentation pages at the
>hp sites in either Malaysia or Thailand!?!?!
>
>I finally found something that looked remotely like technical
>docs on the HP site, and it was, but the wrong sort.  It was
>a nice set of pictures and text describing how to install
>the 447891 drive in a PC.  But no links to specs or anything
>actually useful.  (Though the pictures were nicer than those
>in the installation sheet that came with the same drive on
>another system, which I happen to have a copy of.)
>
>This page had a feedback form at the bottom of it, which I
>tried to use, but when I clicked "submit", it came back with
>a page not found.
>
>What a waste of several hours;  I could have driven to MicroCenter,
>bought a bunch of DVD's of each variety, brought them all with
>me to the customer site next month (when the system will get
>installed), and tested them all in each drive to see which
>ones work, cheaper than trying to surf for the info.
>
>The helpful (non-HP?) people who brought us CDRECORD probably
>know just what kind of media work best with the VMS drive,
>but does anyone know for the different (and probably incompatible)
>Proliant drive?

Your _H_opelessly _P_athetic _H_ardware _P_urchases are just that.
_H_opelessly _P_athetic doesn't care if you use that bill of goods
once you've sent them the _H_ardware _P_ayment.

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

  http://www.quirkfactory.com/popart/asskey/eqn2.png
  
  "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"