Magstore Ltd, which took over the European marketing of disk drives from Century Data Corp in October (CI No 1,029), has unveiled the Magstore SD1800 protocol converter, enabling DEC users to upgrade to the BI Bus VAX models while keeping their existing SMD and ESDI disk drives; the SD1800 is plug compatible with DEC UDA50, KDA50, KDB50, HSC50 and HSC70 disk controllers and can be connected to almost any VAXcluster, VAXBI, Q-Bus or Unibus system; the converter currently supports drives from Century Data, Fujitsu, CDC, NEC, Priam and Toshiba, while drives attached by the SD1800 emulate those in DEC’s RA series; it is priced at UKP6,200 with adaptors for up to two SMD drives, UKP4,250 for up to four ESDI drives.
