Re: SCSI Blues [Was: Re: AppleII Gs Problems]

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

Adam Powers <adam@aladdin.rado.uic.edu> wrote:

> While on the subject of IIgs cards...
> 
> I recently acquired an 'as is' IIgs which I've been nursing back to health.
> It's a "Woz" edition - I upgraded the ROM to version 01, and it now has 1280K
> of RAM.  I can boot from floppy with GSOS 6, so the next logical step is to
> add a hard drive...  Here's where I get stuck.  I pulled an Apple-branded
> 40 MB Quantum drive from a scuttled Mac and put it in an external case.
> With the SCSI ID set to 6 and termination on, the drive showed up just fine
> when connected to a Mac.  The GSOS installer couldn't find it.  I used the
> Apple's HD SC Setup on the Mac to reformat and create ProDOS partitions on
> the drive, but still no luck.
> 
> Any suggestions on whether this is a software or hardware problem
> (i.e., am I missing something simple like installing a IIgs-specific driver)?
> My card is labeled "CMS SCSI II" and I've tried it in a couple of slots.
> There are many many jumpers on the card, and I don't know what they do.

I suggest you sell this card and get a standard one (Apple original,
Apple High-Speed or RamFast).  See the FAQ for comp.sys.apple2 for a
comparison of these cards.  The RamFast is the only one that is still
being sold and supported, is the fastest of the three, and supports the
widest range of devices (though some recent hard drives don't work on
the RamFast, but are fine on the Apple cards).

The problem with the CMS SCSI card is that it is not compatible with the
partitioning scheme used on the Mac and normal Apple II SCSI cards.
Instead, it uses the jumpers on the card to set the partition sizes.  It
supports a limited number of partitions (either two or four, compared to
at least seven for the other cards), and has no native GS/OS driver,
which means a significant speed penalty.

The only useful feature it has is that it can be used to share a drive
between multiple Apple IIs, all of which must have CMS SCSI cards.  The
cards must be set up so that each computer has its own private
partition, and access to a shared read-only partition.  One computer can
be configured with write access to the shared partition, but this must
be used carefully - all "workstations" should be rebooted after any
changes are made on the "server", to be on the safe side.

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