Re: SCSI-IDE-CF Experiment

[pitz <pitz.wong@gmail.com>]

On Sep 23, 12:26 pm, "Henry S. Courbis"
<apl2research(a.t.)comcast.net> wrote:
> Hello Peter.
>
> Kind of funny this came up as you'll want to read this:http://68kmla.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=72433#72433
>
> Check that eBay link and I bet you'll still find those SCSI PCMCIA Drives
> for $80.  I'm still waiting on a PCMCIA to CF Adapter I purchased to arrive
> though, but I'm pretty sure this setup will work for us.  Then I need to
> find the time to perform some testing.
>
> Next will be to have some Drivers written for GS/OS I assume.  I'm not that
> familiar with GS/OS so I really have no idea what's needed in that
> department.  But I would assume the Drive will work as a basic device at
> least.  I've never setup a SCSI HDD before in ProDOS either.  Any special
> utils I need to use for the Apple SCSI or RAMFast cards?
>
> Comments?
>
> --
> Henry S. Courbiswww.ReactiveMicro.com
> Legacy Hardware and Support - Come take a look at what we have to offer!

I had been reading on some products a few months back.  Only a few
SCSI-PCMCIA adapters are out in the market, and I did not find SCSI-CF
adapters.  I did some reading on the MCDISK adapters (which is also
what's inside the Spyrus adapters).  Based on a FAQ at http://www.mpl.ch/t2351.html,
the MCDISK can support higher capacity memory cards by using the
latest firmware, but it still does not support IO cards.

For disk/block-type devices, the SCSI-IDE approach seems cheaper (SCSI-
IDE adapters run from $30-$70), and IDE-CF or IDE-SD adapters are a
cheap $5.  Again, I doubt that IO cards (e.g., SDIO) will be
supported.  I don't think the IDE specs mention anything regarding IO
devices.

IO cards would generally be hard to support through SCSI, because
there are only a few peripheral types supported by the SCSI
specifications.  It's good to know that Ethernet is one of them though
-- there are a few products available for the Mac that use SCSI-
Ethernet converters (from Dayna and Asante) -- there's ongoing work to
someday port the drivers over to GS/OS+Marinetti ;-)

Having said that, the SCSI-PCMCIA setup you mentioned should present
itself as a regular SCSI block device, and the GS/OS SCSI driver
should be the only additional software you need.

/Peter