Re: What is this SCSI card?

[shopwood@socs.uts.EDU.AU (Scott Glenn Hopwood)]

luigi@ace.com (Luigi) writes:
>:>>      More importantly, they have annother one for $25.  It is just a
>:>>card, no manual or software.  It says that it is a CMS SCSI II.  It
>:is (c)
>:>>1986, but has a sticker on a chip that has a late 1987 date.  This
>:store
>:>>has a 24 hour return policy.

Whereas the RamFAST and Apple SCSI cards use and recognise the Apple
Partition Map, the CMS SCSI card uses its own method of defining partitions.
The CMS SCSI card has three ROM revisions.

The 1987 ROM uses jumpers on the card to define the partitions on the drive.
These partitions cannot be greater than 32MB and only two partitions are
supported. The manual should be considered a MUST HAVE.

The 1989 ROM is similar to the 1987 ROM in functionality, but it has an
annoying habit of shutting down the drive after a period of inactivity. It
needs an access attempt to start it up again, but this access will return a
failure error code (ok when you can redo the action but not too good
otherwise :). A plus in its favour is that the jumper settings are available
from the utility software. Because of this, the manual is not a necessity.

The 1990 ROM gets around the problem of jumper based partitions by assuming
that each partition on the drive will be 32MB (or as much as is left less
than 32MB). This ROM will therefore support > 60MB of storage on multiple
drives. The drawback is that only two partitions can be accessed at a 
time. The ROM supports switching them in and out at boot time (hold down 
the Open Apple key). The jumper settings are once again available in the 
utility software.

For the sake of compatibility with the Apple Partition Map,  (do you wish to
use the same drive on a RamFAST or Apple SCSI card? or on a Macintosh?) the
CMS SCSI card should not be considered.

However if you just wish to plug 60MB onto an Apple //e and have it sit
there, then the CMS card maybe just what you need.

The CMS SCSI card has one advantage over the RamFAST and Apple SCSI cards.
It can be used to share a hard drive between computers. I have two 1989 ROM
cards (in an Apple //e and a //gs) sharing a 60MB drive with a second //gs
which has a 1990 ROM card (for more details, email me).

>Hmm...the quoting got messed up, but oh well.
>Are you trying to tell me that you know of a store that is selling $25
>Apple SCSI cards?!! Are they normal or high speed? You've gotta be
>joking... What's wrong with them?? <grin> The best price I've seen was
>$60 for normal and $70 for high speed used SCSI cards!

The $25 cards are NOT Apple cards. As for what they can and can't do,
see above.

Regards,
Andrew Roughan

Please reply to:
posty@triode.apana.org.au