Re: USB input devices?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Kelly, Bryan <bryank@americasm01.nt.com> wrote:

> David Empson wrote:
> > 
> > Mike Kent <Mkent01@voyager.cris.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 2) A SCSI-3 card,
> > 
> > The only practical use I can think of would be for supporting newer
> > drives that only have LVD or other weird interfaces.  (It is getting
> > difficult to buy drives that use the standard 50-pin 8-bit SCSI-1
> > connector.)
> > 
> > In any case, most of the current drives are so huge that I can't imagine
> > anyone ever using the whole thing on an Apple II.
> 
> I have to disagree with you there, David. True, the speed and capacity
> of the newer drives may not be fully utilized, but at some point the old
> drives are going to give out and having as many options as possible for
> replacement can only be a good thing. Still, I would have placed this
> item lower on the list at #4.

It is only the electrical and protocol support issues that are of
concern.  I'm pretty sure that you can connect many "ultra wide" devices
to an 8-bit host with the right cable.  Differential won't work, but I'm
not sure about LVD.

The RamFast is probably at the end of the line as far as supporting
newer drives is concerned, due to its non-support for SCSI arbitration
(and lack of its own SCSI ID).  The Quantum Fireball is the first drive
I know of which won't work on the RamFast, and I seem to recall an IBM
drive being mentioned at some point.

The Apple SCSI cards should continue to work with newer drives, as long
as they can be connected electrically.


I still thing this is a rather pointless goal to pursue.  Low-end SCSI
hard drives are being phased out, since Macs have switched to IDE as
their internal interface.  Most manufacturers are concentrating on using
SCSI for high capacity and/or high performance drives, which are
significantly more expensive than older drives ever were.  The extra
cost provides features that can't even be used on the Apple II (higher
performance in particular, capacity to a lesser extent).

This means that new SCSI drives are being priced out of the Apple II
market.  This suggests that Apple II users should concentrate on
second-hand SCSI drives which are more suited to the machine, or switch
to IDE at some point.  The Focus card looks like a better and better
idea.

I can't even buy a SCSI Quantum Fireball any more (I'm looking for a new
drive for my older PowerMac).  At present, it looks like the only drive
I can still get which has the traditional 50-pin SCSI connector is the
Seagate Medalist Pro.

> > > 3) an Ethernet card.
> > 
> > Yep.  10 Mbps (e.g. 10Base-T) is practical, though the Apple II isn't
> > quite fast enough to keep up with it.  Some buffering RAM would be
> > needed on the card.  100Base would be pointless.
> 
> This seems to be the Holy Grail for Apple II folks. With this and a
> small Focus drive (just to avoid network booting) a whole slew of
> problems could be solved. I'd put this one at #1.

Ditto.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand