Re: Using 20SC with //GS?

[Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.bc.ca>]

Marvin Miller wrote:

> Wayne;
>
> Say, your in BC ! I am in Parksville on Vancouver Island. I'm
> surprised by the number of people from BC I've been running into in
> the Apple arena.

In Vancouver. The ApplesBC user group has helped keep up my
interest in the Apple II and still holds occasional Apple II meetings.
(another blatant plug:-)

> The reason for the 2.1 gig drives is that I already have them. I also
> have some cabling etc from a RAID array that I can use.
>
> My understanding is that when my //gs arrives I'm going to go through
> some hassle with xfering the Apple progs from the PC ---> Apple. After
> that, I anticpate a hassle decompressing all this stuff. My plan was
> to xfer it over, decompress it, organize it and than use it/archive
> it.
>
> Because of the time involved in doing this, I wanted to lay it out in
> a neat manner and back it up onto another drive. CD would be
> prefferable, but I can't see a way of doing this without making the
> disk unreadable to the //gs. (that I'm aware of)

The IIgs will read  ISO 9660 disks so if you have a CD burner or access
to one then there's no problem.

>
>
> So I guess it comes back to keeping the progs 'internal' to the //gs
> or having them external but in the //gs native format. How to
> accomplish this - I don't know. I don't even have my //gs yet and I've
> already got more parts & periphs coming that I can keep track of!
>
> Back to the scsi card topic though.... I did see that there are
> different Apple scsi cards out there. The prime difference seems to be
> revision number. I have an opportunity to pick one up from Greg
> Buchner but I want to ensure I get the right one (read fastest and
> most compatible). Also, there seems to be issues with termination
> power on the Apple card (some support it - some don't)

The Apple SCSI card situation can be a bit confusing at first glance.
There's the first one that's usually referred to as the Rev C but isn't
exactly. The first Apple SCSI card came in 3 revisions Rev A, Rev B,
and Rev C. It's the same card but they updated the EPROM. Any earlier
ones can be updated with a Rev C EPROM. Only the cards with the
Rev C EPROM will work with GSOS. Or offer any CD-ROM support
at all.
The Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card came in only one version. And incidentally
only works on the IIe & IIgs. It's a bit faster than the earlier card and
offers better support for removable media, especially CD-ROMs.

The Ramfast Rev D, very noticeably faster with even better for CD-ROMs
Only works on the IIe & IIgs unfortunately. Has a built-in utility for
formatting and partitioning HDs. That utility also lets you choose your
Boot partition and allows you to activate and deactiveate partitions
amongst other features. Has a jumper if you want it to supply term
power. Only allows 12 active partitions at one time and has severe
problems with any drive that requires the interface to have a SCSi id.

Termination Power. Some of the later Apple cards came with that mod
and you can make it yourself. I've never bothered. You can buy
terminators that supply term power. They're called active terminators,
also the diagnostic terminators also supply term power. So if I'm trying
to use an unfamiliar drive and can't find it, I swap the regular terminator
for an active one.


     Wayne