cwright@wpi.WPI.EDU (Charles R Wright) (01/04/91)
Thanks to all who responsed to my request for info on the compatibility of Mac SCSI drives on Unix boxes vs. other SCSI drives on Macs and various other combinations. I am saving the responses for a few weeks. If anyone is interested, mail me and request a copy. Thanks again, Charles Wright cwright@wpi.wpi.edu
cwright@wpi.WPI.EDU (Charles R Wright) (01/10/91)
Back by popular demand, here is a reposting of my collection of responses to the question about compatibility of Mac SCSI peripherals with others, ie, Next, Sun, etc. There are two new contributions; I placed them first. Letters are separated by a line of equals. Also, please now address all responses to the newsgroup. I've been overwhelmed by the responses, and it is unlikely I will have time to respond in the future, what with the spring semester starting and all. All standard dislaimers apply! I'm not responsible for your computer blowing up! ;-) Charles Wright ====================================================================== From @encore.encore.com:devoz@pinocchio.encore.com Wed Jan 9 11:29:16 1991 Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 11:27:30 EST From: devoz <devoz@pinocchio.encore.com> Message-Id: <9101091627.AA21205@pinocchio.> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Mac SCSI Compatibility Status: OR cwright@wpi.WPI.EDU (Charles R Wright): > I am saving the responses for a few weeks. If anyone is interested, > mail me and request a copy. I would like a copy. I didn't see the original, but I put a 1375 micropolis up on my mac using Ephraim Vishniacs scsi stuff. I did find that it won't boot if there is disk with a system folder in the floppy or an internal drive, and I think its due to a quirk with the mac. I think mac roms don't expect the unit attention, and thus drives can't report unit attention on power-on. If the 1375 is the only drive, then it boots fine as I think the first time the mac talks to a drive, it causes the unit attention condition to clear and since it will continually look for something on the bus, it gets it on the second try. devoz ====================================================================== From hung@cephalo.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu Tue Jan 8 19:03:30 1991 Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 18:02:45 CST From: hung@cephalo.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu (Hung K.M. Nguyen) Message-Id: <9101090002.AA16355@cephalo.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu.> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Organization: Division of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine Cc: Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: >Essentially, is a SCSI drive a SCSI drive is a SCSI drive? Does Apple >do any "weird shit" to make their "SCSI" drives incompatible with any >other manufacturer? Apple does re-burn the PROMs to mark them with an apple id. I don't know of the effect on trying to use apple drives with other machines. There is a problem with using apple software to format, etc., third party drives, hence the popularity of SilverLining, which is far superior to apple's programs anyways. Specifically, can a third-party Mac SCSI drive be >connected to a Next machine's SCSI port? For that matter, can one >connect it to a Sun with SCSI port? I'm about to try just this. basically, SCSI is SCSI is SCSI, there wouldn't be a point to all these companies doing things the SCSI way otherwise. But problem spots are: 1. Next computers use SCSI2 format. You can hook up SCSI disks to the SCSI ports with a special cable available from Next. 2. termination. Manufacturers vary as to whether they use internally-terminated or externally-terminated drives. Most drives can be changed by pulling a few jumpers, etc. hope this helps. -- Hung Nguyen hung@bcm.tmc.edu Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX 77030 ====================================================================== From: maltasr@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Robert Maltas) Message-Id: <9012290143.AA14492@csusac.ecs.csus.edu> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: California State University, Sacramento Status: OR Depends on what type of MAC SCSI drive you purchase. I bought a PowerDrive 210 meg external SCSI drive; it uses a Quantum ProDrive 210S and was meant to be used for a MAC-----------but I'm using it on my Amiga 2000, with no problem at all. Robert Maltas -- /// \\\/// UUCP : {ucdavis|lll-crg}!csusac!maltasr \XX/ Internet: maltasr@csusac.csus.edu ====================================================================== From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) Message-Id: <9012290149.AA05057@toaster.SFSU.EDU> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: San Francisco State University Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: >Essentially, is a SCSI drive a SCSI drive is a SCSI drive? Does Apple >do any "weird shit" to make their "SCSI" drives incompatible with any >other manufacturer? YES! > Specifically, can a third-party Mac SCSI drive be >connected to a Next machine's SCSI port? For that matter, can one >connect it to a Sun with SCSI port? Sun and NeXT devices should be interchangeable, Mac peripherals often don't work with either. Sometimes a ROM change will fix things, sometimes not. Talk to your vendor. BTW, at least 80% of all "stupid questions" are answered in NextAnswers--the first place you should look! Here's a sample: Q: I have a Maxtor XT-8760S for a Mac. Can I use it with my NeXT? A: No. According to Maxtor, they make different versions of the same model of drive for different computers. The Mac version of the 8760S, for example, has a different PROM to handle Apple's non-standard SCSI implementation. The Mac PROM is incompatible with our computer. Contact Maxtor for more information. QA574 ------- SCSI disk compatibility Release 2.0 Q: What SCSI hard drives are compatible for use with NeXT computers? A: NeXT offers a complete line of hard disks for use with NeXT computer systems. They range in size from 105 MB to 1.2 GB. These drives have been carefully qualified by NeXT and include NeXT's one year warranty. You should contact your authorized NeXT reseller for more information on these drives. The NeXT system software also supports some third party SCSI hard drives not sold by NeXT. For the NeXT system software to support the drive your system must be running software release 2.0, be connected to the drive with the correct cable, and the drive must support the following SCSI commands and revisions: 1) "Inquiry" and "Read Capacity" commands 2) The drive must conform to the ANSI SCSI Rev. 17B or greater 3) 10 (ten) byte read and write command blocks If the drive is unformatted, it will be automatically formatted only in the following situations: --the drive's capacity is less than 6 MBytes, and --the drive uses removable media. In order to work with the file system, the drive's sector size must be 512 or 1024 bytes. Please check with your SCSI drive provider for details on your drive. NeXT does not have additional information on third party drives. See also: QA579 regarding SCSI cables. QA586 -=EPS=- ====================================================================== From: matthews@is-next.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) Message-Id: <9012290020.AA14523@is-next.umd.edu> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: Comp. Sci. Ctr., Univ. of MD, College Park, MD 20742 Cc: Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: >Please pardon me if this has been covered before. I have a friend (stuff deleted) >cwright@wpi.wpi.edu As long as it's external, and you have the right cable, it will be no problem at all. Internal drives may be kind of funky, though, since Mac *does* do something funny with the SCSI signal. It only seems to matter for internal setups, though (I have no idea why). I bought a "Mac" Fujitsu drive, and it works peachyfine on my NeXTstation. Mike ====================================================================== From: Jim Guyton <guyton@gaucho> Message-Id: <9012290817.AA00677@gaucho.rand.org> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: > >Essentially, is a SCSI drive a SCSI drive is a SCSI drive? Does Apple (stuff deleted) >connect it to a Sun with SCSI port? > You can (mostly) mix and match (subject to funny cables, the real internal scsi cable is standard, but the external cables are wide and varied). The biggest problem I've found is that the Mac Boot proms aren't quite up to spec. It resets the bus, and then does a read of the boot block. But a lot of disks go into a wierd 'query me' mode after a reset and need to have their status read before a block read will work. I.e. a slight difference in the drive roms makes life anything but boring. I have lots of fun mixing/matching scsi disks between Suns and Macs, haven't ever used a Next machine. -- Jim Guyton guyton@rand.org ====================================================================== From: finger@evax.utarl.edu (Jay Finger) Message-Id: <9012290700.AA14004@evax.utarl.edu> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: Computer Science Engineering Univ. of Texas at Arlington Cc: Status: OR When Apple first started using SCSI, they botched it up. They've fixed it since then, but many some drive manufacturers still sell normal and mac versions of their SCSI drives. Other drives are compatible both ways, still others only work with normal SCSI and run the risk of not working with Macs (but it's been a while since I've found one like that). I'm going to try to use a Quantum 80Meg drive that used to be on a macintosh (an old mac that had some of the apple screw-ups) with my NextStation (105Meg). I don't know if it will work with the station yet, because I don't have the correct cable. However, 3 days ago I connected it to a NeXTCube that had the old 68030 board (with mac-style connector) and was running NeXTStep 2.0. Everything worked great, I copied over the development stuff that I don't have, so I'm pretty optimistic that once I get the cable I'll be able to use the drive. If your friend is trying to use an 80Meg Quantum let me know, and I'll try to remember to let you know what happens once I get the cable. ---- #include <stddisclaimer.h> Jay Finger Computer Science and Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington finger@evax.utarl.edu b645zai@utarlg.utarl.edu ====================================================================== From: dce@krusty.smsc.Sony.COM Received: from krusty.smsc.Sony.COM by sonyusa.Sony.COM (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA09852; Mon, 31 Dec 90 09:40:43 PST Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 09:40:43 PST Message-Id: <9012311740.AA09852@sonyusa.Sony.COM> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: Sony Microsystems Corp, San Jose, CA Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1534 Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: >Essentially, is a SCSI drive a SCSI drive is a SCSI drive? Does Apple (stuff deleted) >connect it to a Sun with SCSI port? Apple SCSI isn't a complete implementation, but the problems almost always go in the other direction. That is, a drive not set up specifically for a Mac may not work in a Mac. I recently got a great deal on a pair of CDC hard disks (150MB external drives for $300 each!). It worked fine on my Mac II (I was lucky enough to have some formatting software that knew about the drive), but on a friend's Mac Plus, it wouldn't work as the boot drive (which was what he wanted it for in the first place). He had to do a lot of work getting the termination right by adding resistors, moving jumpers, and so forth, but eventually got it all working. Luckily, his Plus was not one of the tan/beige ones, which had more problems with many standard SCSI drives. So, it is probable that your 3rd-party drive will work fine with the NeXT or Sun, or any Unix machine, as long as you can get the parameters for the drive (which can be the hard part, especially with smaller drives, since most Unix machines are set up for big drives). -- ...David Elliott ...dce@smsc.sony.com | ...!{uunet,mips}!sonyusa!dce ...(408)944-4073 ..."That's *Mr.* Squishy-Lips to you!" ====================================================================== To: cwright@wpi (Charles R Wright) Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems From: johankha@tz.wimsey.bc.ca (e_mou) Message-Id: <0NF2u1w163w@tz.wimsey.bc.ca> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 01:46:32 PST In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: Somewhere in The Twilight Zone, Van, B.C Status: OR cwright@wpi.WPI.EDU (Charles R Wright) writes: > Please pardon me if this has been covered before. I have a friend (stuff deleted) > cwright@wpi.wpi.edu I managed to get an EMAC Metro external hd to hook up to a cube. You need to edit the disktab, but it seems to be working fine. (This was done about 4 weeks ago). ====================================================================== From: mlg@cblph.att.com (Michael L Goodrich) To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware In-Reply-To: <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Cc: Status: OR In article <1990Dec28.210746.21876@wpi.WPI.EDU> you write: >Please pardon me if this has been covered before. I have a friend (stuff deleted) >cwright@wpi.wpi.edu As far as I know apple doesn't do anything unusual with there implementation of SCSI. I have used various hard drives from a buch of different manufacturers with my Mac Plus and have only had problems with the HP drives. Other than that everything has worked very well. Thanks Mike mlg@cblph.att.com ====================================================================== From: Donald Phillips <DonP%blkhole.uucp@RELAY.CS.NET> To: cwright@wpi Subject: Re: Compatibility of Mac SCSI drives with other systems Status: OR >Essentially, is a SCSI drive a SCSI drive is a SCSI drive? Does Apple (stuff deleted) >connect it to a Sun with SCSI port? I haven't tried connecting Mac SCSI devices to other computers, however I have successfully connected a Maxtor Hard Disk and an Exabyte tape drive to a Mac IIci's SCSI port. __ Donald Phillips Research Unlimited Escondido, California