On Jul 27, 2009, at 6:35 PM, Gregg Eshelman wrote:
> It usually takes a lot more volume of plastic to achieve the same > structural strength, especially when using un-reinforced plastics, > as used in Apple's computer cases. The ANS uses reinforced ABS in the cabinet base, which also holds the PSUs (700) or the PSU (500). The ABS is many times heavier than that used in one of its PowerMac contemporaries. The ANS uses very heavy gauge steel for the functional part of the case, which is also part of its physical security feature, which requires unique access keys. The ANS case is primed and painted with an epoxy coating which is both very durable and very expensive. Cosmetic repairs are usually more expensive than replacement of the affected panel with a new one, or a good used one salvaged from a donor ANS. The cabinet is 17 x 19 x 14-5/8, with most of that being heavy gauge steel. The ANS is an all-metric machine, with many fasteners being the now archaic (within officially metric countries) M3.5-0.6 size. It is quite obvious that an industrial design group managed the design of the ANS cabinet. There is none of the flimsiness of the contemporary 8500 and 9500. The serviceability features one expects from an industrial product are there, too, and a major component, such as the motherboard, may be replaced in a few minutes, not an hour or so as on the contemporary 8500 and 9500. A special version of the Mylex (formerly IBM, now LSI Logic) DAC960 RAID card was offered, but the cable connections differed from the nearly identical generic "PD" series of DAC960 cards, although the same connections are present on both. The motherboard and the RAID card firmware are arranged so that the absence of the RAID card causes the two on-motherboard UW-SCSI channels to service the UW-SCSI hot-pluggable drive trays, whereas the presence of the RAID card causes the RAID card to service those same trays. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
