Re: Apple IIgs CD-ROM Hook Up Question

[Don Bruder <dakidd@sonic.net>]

In article <1117197799.822146.99530@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
 "Tempest" <tempest@atariprotos.com> wrote:

> I have an Apple IIgs (ROM 3) with an Apple High Speed SCSI card.
> Attached to the SCSI port is a hard drive, which works just fine, but
> I'd like to attack a CD Rom drive to that.  I'm not exactly sure how to
> go about hooking them up however.
> 
> ATM I have the HD plugged into the SCSI port, and a device which looks
> like a pass-through terminator on the spare port on the back of the
> drive.  This works just fine, as the IIgs reads the HD on boot.
> However when I plug the CD drive into the second port on the back of
> the HD and put the terminator on the spare port on the back of the CD
> drive, nothing works.  I think the problem may be that I have the
> terminator in the wrong spot.  

Try leaving the terminator off completely. 

"In any SCSI chain, there are precisely three - no more, no less - 
terminations: One, usually internal, on the host hardware, one on the 
device furthest from the host hardware, and the chicken, which is 
terminated over the SCSI chain using a silver bladed knife whilst 
burning a single black candle and chanting the appropriate verse from 
The Dead SCSI Scrolls at midnight on the night of the full moon" :) 

 
"SCSI is not voodoo... There are sound scientific reasons why it is 
periodically neccesary to sacrifice a chicken, goat, or other small 
animal to keep your SCSI chain functioning" :) 


I know they both work, as the guy I
> bought them from had it up and running.  Also, all the device ID's are
> set up correctly (I think anyway).

Sounds to me like you may be suffering from "excessive termination" - 
I'd suspect that the hard drive is terminated internally.

> Oh and is it possible to hook up a HD to an Apple IIe using the SCSI
> card? Any use for this?

Yes. It's QUITE useful for those running ProDOS. Think "Wow... I can do 
everything I usually do, and NEVER need to swap a floppy for any reason 
whatsoever" worth of storage space. Without some fairly intense "brain 
surgery", DOS 3.3 just doesn't have a clue how to deal with a disk that 
doesn't have 34 tracks, each with 16 sectors, each sector holding 256 
bytes.

> I thought about taking the card out of my
> IIgs when I'm done with it and sticking it in my IIe just for fun.

If you're running ProDOS, it should "just work". If you're running DOS 
3.3 or one of the variants, it'll most likely "just sit there being 
useless" unless you apply one (or more) of the patches that sometimes 
let DOS talk to a non-5.25" disk.

-- 
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