CASA BLANCA WORKS RELEASES DRIVE7 v2.3 Drive7 v2.3 with Drive7Rem is the Most Versatile Support Available September 19, 1992 -- Casa Blanca Works, Inc., of Greenbrae, CA has released version 2.3 of Drive7, the popular universal hard drive formatting software. Testing reveals it to be among the fastest and most reliable way for Macintosh users to upgrade their hard drives and removable devices for Apple's System 7. Version 2.3 ships with two startup disks; one with System 6.0.8 and one with System 7.0.1. This allows all Macintosh users to easily use the formatter. Using Drive7, owners of many third party hard drives are able to update their driver partition making them fully System 7 compatible. Drive7 conforms closely to Apple's guidelines allowing dependable upgrades to be made for future Apple systems and has been successfully tested on new 040 Macs and with 7.0.1. Features of Drive7 v2.3 include the ability to update over a twenty third-party drivers without having to initialize or reformat them. Drive7 formats any hard drive that conforms to Apple's current SCSI guidelines (Quantum, Micropolis, Conner, Fujitsu, Maxtor, Seagate, Rodime and others). It formats and updates "sleep" modes for the CPU and hard drive on the Macintosh Powerbooks and Quantum Go40, 80, and 120 drives. In addition, Drive7 can format removable cartridge and magneto optical drives including Syquest, 45 and 90 Bernoullis, InSite, Sony, Epson, Olympus, Panasonic, and Ricoh optical drives. Multiple Syquest and optical cartridges can be formatted in one session, saving initialization time on the desktop. Included with the program is Drive7rem, a powerful universal removable device CDEV. From within the CDEV, users can set their hard drive partition attributes, including passwords, automounting, locking, and boot partition. The CDEV supports data and sound on Apple, Toshiba , NEC and DEC CD ROM-drives, SyQuest 44 and 88MB systems, Iomega Bernoulli 45 and 90MB systems, Ricoh and Sony 5.25" optical drives and Sony, Ricoh, Olympus, Panasonic and Epson 3.5" (120MB) optical drives. Drive7Rem allows the user to automatically mount a cartridge on the desktop formatted with virtually any program. This is especially useful in a mixed-vendor environment (such as a service bureau) that receives cartridges formatted by any number of formatters and where the operator attempts to mount them with a different driver. It efficiently solves most potential init conflicts as it replaces multiple drivers in the system folder, making it one of the strongest utilities to support removable devices. Another outstanding feature is a command that allows users to designate a Syquest, Bernoulli, or Optical cartridge non-ejectable for use as as virtual memory under System 7. The free upgrade will be mailed in the next two weeks to all U. S. registered users,. Version 2.3 of Drive7 with Drive7rem is available from Casa Blanca Works at the affordable price of $79.95. Additional information can be obtained by telephoning Casa Blanca Works at 415-461-2227 or faxing 415-461-2249. -------------------------------------------------------- Notes About Drive7: We are Casa Blanca Works, Inc., the publishers of Drive7, DriveShare and The Blue Parrot. With the advent of System 7, we realized there would be a need for a formatter that could update most third party drivers. There are a lot of installations that have a mixed driver environment. Many suppliers were very slow to come out with a fully 7.0-compatible (virtual memory and 32-bit addressing) driver. We wanted to provide users with one affordable product that will do that for most, if not all, of their drives. Using Drive7 also gives them a solid, single upgrade path for future Apple systems. Drive7, released in July, 1991, was the first fully-compatible universal commercial formatter released for System 7. Many drivers (and some drives) just plain do not conform to Apples SCSI guidelines. Drive7 was designed to follow Apples guidelines as closely as possible. We have written special code to make allowances for some third party formatters and drives, thereby allowing Updating (vs. reformatting) many drives that are borderline. For those drivers that are close, but not fully in compliance with Apples specs, Drive7 allows an Update (with a warning), without partitioning features. Drive7 intelligently figures out this for the User. If it is doable, the Update button is available; if not, the button is greyed out. Apples SCSI Manager guidelines suggest a driver partition of 16k minimum size. Planning for improvements/requirements, Drive7 allocates a 32k driver partition, as well as a separate, independent entry partition. Most other good formatters still allocate only a 16k partition, and no others have the special entry partition. (Some) Drive7 Features: 1. Cost: Suggested retail price is only $79.95. The first affordable universal formatter. Site licenses are available. 2. Drive7 intelligent driver updates over twenty third-party drivers, including those by Apple, Mirror, Micronet, PLI, Disk Manager, CRU, Alliance, Total Peripherals, DataCase, Spot-On, Storage Technologies, TPI, FWB Toolkit and Personal Edition, Appollyonics, CMS, SilverLining, STI, Storage Dimensions, Cutting Edge, and others. Drive7 can take over any of those drivers, allowing Users to update without initializing or formatting. We know of no other formatter that provides the universality of Drive7, especially at such an affordable price. 3. Drive7 will format any drive that conforms to Apples current SCSI guidelines. These include Quantum, Micropolis, Conner, Fujitsu, Maxtor, Seagate, and others. Also includes exclusive authorized support for SuperMac DataFrame and LaserFrame drives, allowing users to simply update in most cases. 4. Drive7 allows you to format and initialize for Mac as well as A/UX partitioning. You have a number of choices for partitions, and Drive7 also learns the existing partition scheme on your drive, remembers it, and adds it to the list of choices. 5. Partitioning features include Mount/AutoMount, Lock/Unlock, and Password Protection. Most of these are controlled thru the application as well as thru the Drive7rem CDEV. 6. Drive7 has an extremely simple and intuitive interface. Four buttons on the main window. Four more on the extended features panel. The intent in this design was to make it as easy for the user as possible, and not to confuse them with features most dont need, use, or understand. 7. Drive7s driver automatically writes out bad blocks. Because all Macs from the SE on include hardware handshaking in the Mac ROMs, Drive7 does blind writes automatically on those Macs. On the MacPlus, Drive7s special code does polled writes automatically. 8. Another special feature: A choice of 40 different hard drive icons. Plus, you can import any icon you want vis ResEdit. And under System 7, you can copy and paste icons. In addition to the multiple icon choices, Drive7 allows you to optionally place the SCSI ID number (with the choice of two font sizes) on the icon. 9. Unlike some other formatters, you can format multiple removable cartridges in one session. 10. Drive7 also includes a removeable INIT that will recognize virtually any formatted Syquest , Bernoulli, optical cartridge as well as Apple, DEC, NEC and Toshiba CDROMs. You need not reformat or update the cartridge for it to mount. This is a special advantage for users like service bureaus that receive cartridges from a variety of sources. 11. You can designate a Syquest, Bernoulli, and optical cartridge as virtual memory under Drive7. Recommended configuration: Mac Plus or later. Special Features of Drive7 v2.3 September 11, 1992 New Features of Version 2.3 include the following: -- Exclusive authorized support for SuperMac DataFrame and LaserFrame drives. -- Support for MOST, Panasonic and Olympus 3.5" MO Drives. -- Multiple Partitions on Removable Devices. -- Speed Improvements. -- NEC CD-ROM Sound Support. -- Copy and Paste Partition Creation/Sizing. -- Odd and Even Numbers of Partitions. -- Auto Stop Time. -- Software SCSI ID selection on SuperMac and Quantum drives. -- Custom MacPlus Performance Driver. -- New Icons. -- Compatibility with Brainstorm, Total Systems Gemini Ultra and Fusion Data Systems TokaMac accelerator boards. * SuperMac DataFrame and LaserFrame drives Casa Blanca Works is proud to have been chosen by SuperMac to support their estimated 200,000 DataFrame and LaserFrame drive owners. Until now, there has never been support for updating these devices by any commercial formatter on the market. Using Drive7 on your DataFrame or LaserFrame drive is no different than updating any other mechanism. * MOST, Panasonic and Olympus 3.5" MO Drives. Version 2.2 introduced support for Ricoh, Sony and Epson Magneto-Optical drives. Version 2.3 now introduces support for MOST, Panasonic and Olympus 3.5" MO Drives. Using our CDEV, Drive7rem, you have full support for these mechanisms including the ability to format a cartridge on the desktop level using erase disk from the Special menu. You may also use Command-Y (Put Away) to fully eject any cartridge. * Multiple partitions on removable devices. Removable devices such as SyQuest, Insite Floptical and Magneto-Optical drives can now be formatted with multiple partitions. You may also use the Drive7rem CDEV to change any partition attribute without returning to the Drive7 application. * Speed Improvements. We have made significant improvements to the speed of Drive7s drivers and recommend you update your mechanisms to take full advantage of this performance upgrade. Updating is described on page 11 of your owners manual. * NEC CD-ROM Sound Support. The release version of v2.3 includes sound support for NEC CD-ROMs. It also supports sound and data on the Apple CD-SC, CD-150, and the Toshiba 3301 CD-ROMs. * Copy and Paste Partitions. You may create a custom number of partitions using the Copy and Paste functions built into the Macintosh operating system. * Odd and Even numbered Partitions. Earlier versions of Drive7 only offered even numbers of partitions to select from (2, 4 etc.). Version 2.3 includes both odd and even numbers to choose from. Furthermore, any number of partitions may be created using Copy and Paste (see above). * Auto Stop Time. Designed mainly for servers, a new feature in Drive7 is Auto Stop Time, which lets you designate a length of inactivity before your drive spins down. Auto Stop Time works just like the sleep mode on Apple Powerbooks, but instead of saving battery power, it saves wear on the hard drive. Any ADB (Apple desktop bus), mouse or keyboard activity wakes up your drive. * Software SCSI ID selection on SuperMac and Quantum drives. Special code has been implemented to allow for changing the SCSI ID via software on mechanisms that support it. These include the SuperMac DataFrame and LaserFrame drives as well as most Quantum Drives. If the mechanism supports this feature, Drive7 adds a Set ID button on the main window when the drive is selected. * MacPlus Performance Driver. This performance driver option installs a specially tuned driver for the Macintosh Plus. We recommend updating your drive to take full advantage of this highly effective new driver. Because of the Mac Plus ROM chips, we are unable to offer support for password protection and other options on the Mac Plus. * New Icons Drive7 now includes 40 different icons to choose from with optional SCSI ID numbers included right on the front. * Total Systems-Gemini Ultra and Fusion Data Systems-TokaMac accelerator boards. Owners of Total Systems-Gemini Ultra and Fusion Data Systems-TokaMac accelerator boards now have full support for their systems with version 2.3. Version 2.2 included support for Brainstorm accelerators. CASA BLANCA WORKS, INC. 148 Bon Air Center Greenbrae, CA 94904 415-461-2227 Fax 415-461-2249 AppleLink, AOL: CBWorks Compuserve: 73750,1317 Internet: CBWorks@aol.com +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | From the America Online - New Product Information Services | +===============================================================+ | This information was processed from data provided by the | | above mentioned company. 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