[comp.sys.mac.misc] Question: startup beeps diagnostic?

jford@eagle.wesleyan.edu (05/25/91)

A friend of mine told me that the startup beep (the single beep that occurs
when you turn on your Mac) is actually a diagnostic of some kind.  Is this
true?

The question arose, actually, because his brother had tried to hook his hard
drive up to my friend's new IIfx, and they discovered that this didn't work. 
for some reason, every time the computer started up, it would check to see what
was there (as usual), and then the computer would go "de da da da" with a
rising pitch and stop booting.

Anyone have any idea what could have caused this?  They spent two hours at it,
and still have no idea.  As far as they know the drive is internally
terminated, and they tried resetting it's SCSI id.

Jamie Ford
jford@eagle.wesleyan.edu

pejacoby@mmm.serc.3m.com (Paul E. Jacoby) (05/29/91)

In article <1991May25.000907.43184@eagle.wesleyan.edu> jford@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>A friend of mine told me that the startup beep (the single beep that occurs
>when you turn on your Mac) is actually a diagnostic of some kind.  Is this
>true?

Jamie,
  There was a program released a while back that would tell you what the
  diagnostic chimes (the startup noises are really chimes, right? :-)
  mean, and allow you to play them to 'ear train' yourself to their
  meanings.

  I suspect the program is at Sumex somewhere.  Try looking for 'diag'
  as a keyword.

  Paul
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| Paul E. Jacoby, 3M Company, 3M Center, 235-3F-27                   |
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glenn@gla-aux.uucp (Glenn Austin) (05/29/91)

In article <1991May25.000907.43184@eagle.wesleyan.edu>, jford@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
> The question arose, actually, because his brother had tried to hook his hard
> drive up to my friend's new IIfx, and they discovered that this didn't work. 
> for some reason, every time the computer started up, it would check to see what
> was there (as usual), and then the computer would go "de da da da" with a
> rising pitch and stop booting.
> 
> Anyone have any idea what could have caused this?  They spent two hours at it,
> and still have no idea.  As far as they know the drive is internally
                                                            ^^^^^^^^^^
> terminated, and they tried resetting it's SCSI id.
  ^^^^^^^^^^

If it's internally terminated, then it won't work with the IIfx.  That is
the reason for the black terminator shipped with the IIfx.  It should be
the ONLY one used to terminate the SCSI bus.

===============================================================================
| Glenn L. Austin                | "Turn too soon, run out of room.           |
| Macintosh Wizard and           |    Turn too late, much better fate."       |
| Auto Racing Driver             |   -- Jim Russell Racing School Instructors |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Don't take me too seriously -- I never do!  :-)                             |
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| Usenet:  glenn@gla-aux.uucp or glenn%gla-aux.uucp@skinner.cs.uoregon.edu    |
===============================================================================

kaufman@neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) (05/29/91)

In article <0E010021.q0z3vc@gla-aux.uucp> glenn%gla-aux.uucp@skinner.cs.uoregon.edu writes:

(regarding a disk drive...)

>If it's internally terminated, then it won't work with the IIfx.  That is
>the reason for the black terminator shipped with the IIfx.  It should be
>the ONLY one used to terminate the SCSI bus.

I have quit responding to Mr. Austin's claims that all simms in a bank must
be the same speed.  However, before everyone rips up their internally
terminated disks, I would like to state that internal termination works
just fine on all of the disks I have used on an fx.  The purpose of the new,
black, terminator is to provide a stiffer decoupled power supply for
terminators at the end of a cable -- in order to prevent crosstalk between
the SCSI signals.  In the case of internal termination, especially when
it is powered from the drive itself, the power is local and supplied by a
low impedence source -- so there is essentially no crosstalk introduced by
coupling between the termination resistors.

The black terminator should absolutely be used if the termination (either
internal or external) is powered through the SCSI cable -- but this is rare
in the case of internal termination.

Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)

dplatt@ntg.com (Dave Platt) (05/30/91)

In article <0E010021.q0z3vc@gla-aux.uucp> glenn%gla-aux.uucp@skinner.cs.uoregon.edu writes:

>If it's internally terminated, then it won't work with the IIfx.

It'd be more accurate to phrase that "... then it may not work reliably
with the IIfx."  An drive which is internally terminated, _and_ which
has a well-designed termination circuit that includes a buffer
capacitor, will work just fine with the IIfx.  Many drives don't bother
to include buffer caps in their internal-termination circuit... and they
may not work reliably with the IIfx.

>                                                                That is
>the reason for the black terminator shipped with the IIfx.  It should be
>the ONLY one used to terminate the SCSI bus.

That's a good approach.  However, there's nothing magic about the black
terminator... it has a couple of bypass caps on the TERMPWR line, but
in other respects it's a vanilla parallel terminator.

-- 
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