mward@blake.acs.washington.edu (Mark Ward) (08/29/90)
Hello, all. I'm interested in connecting my mac+ to one or more st506 interfaced hard drives. I've seen ads for many scsi to st506 adapters, but I'm not sure which I need. I seem to remember that some won't work with the mac, but of course the places offering them don't mention that in their ads. The first drive I'd like to connect is a miniscribe 25mb 1/2h 5.25" drive, for which I have no docs. Would anyone know how to help with these problems? The drive's model # is either 2538 or 3825... I have tons of power supplies, enclosures, and lots of soldering and cabling experience, so that part will be pretty easy. Oh, I just remembered: I've also got a tape drive (archive) with a 50 pin connector on it. No docs. I've heard there are only a couple standard tape drive interfaces, and with a controller avail (scsi to oic36) for $33, sounds good. Any hints??? thanks in advance. -mark
joe@cbnews.att.com (Joseph Judge) (09/02/90)
(Mark Ward) writes: > Hello, all. I'm interested in connecting my mac+ to one or more st506 > interfaced hard drives. I've seen ads for many scsi to st506 adapters, > but I'm not sure which I need. I seem to remember that some won't work > with the mac, but of course the places offering them don't mention that > in their ads. Oh poo. Those boards all do SCSI <-> ST506. Some dance and sing. Some have some spiffy SCSI calls (Read Capacity, etc). Some don't. That's about all I have found. You *need* drive docs. Contact a local electronics firm or the manufacturer. Tell them you need the OEM guide for whatever drive. You need a drive, a board, cabling (board to drive: (1) control and (1) data cables, std Mac SCSI cable (1), board to SCSI socket(1)), power supply and a formatting program. You can get ESDI, ST506 (RLL or MFM), and SCSI drives. If you get a SCSI drive, forget the board. I've only tried the MFM ST506 drives, so don't ask me about the others. Formatting programs I have used: SF&I by E. Vishniac (sort of free-ware, read the docs - I donated blood for it!), & Silverlining. I've done this before SilverLining and after. I much prefer the after. There is a SCSI formatter source somewhere (sumex?). Never tried it. I've used an OMTI 3100 board (called Scientific Micro Systems themselves for the OEM guide). I know of folks who have used the Adaptec 4000A (?) board, also. Some SCSI/ST506 boards do RLL, some MFM, some both - depends what you want and if your drive can handle RLL. Some are able to hang 2 or 4 drives (more?) - doesn't matter, the Mac can only handle 1 drive to a SCSI id (== 1 board, 1 drive). Someone want to write a driver to get around this someday? :) Some places have SCSI <-> ST506 boards made esp for the Mac. These will work with the (earlier) Mac SCSI startup problem. I don't think it matters much these days, though. Apple fixed that a long time ago. Hook them all up apropriately. Kick off the formatter, answer the questions by looking in your OEM guide (how many tracks/surface, how many surfaces, etc ...) and done. It seems scarier than it really is. I heartily recommend this for folks with drives sitting around. I have a harddrive now and can remember running with floppy/RAM disk (booo). It may sound like a plane taking off while running, but then, it was a drive destined for the trash anyway. Someday, I'll save some bucks and buy a newer, quieter, larger capacity drive. Oh, don't make ungodly huge partitions. Anything over 30-40 Meg make your Mac sooooo slooooow in updating the desktop. > > > Oh, I just remembered: I've also got a tape drive (archive) with a 50 pin > connector on it. No docs. I've heard there are only a couple standard > tape drive interfaces, and with a controller avail (scsi to oic36) for $33, > sounds good. Any hints??? > Always wanted to try this. No time, $$ to. There is a mailing list of folks who did this/doing this somewhere. On rascal.ics.utexas.edu, I think. Look in the TEAC or .TEAC directory (in /mac ???). I thought that was supposed to qic not oic. Joseph Judge joe@cblpf.att.com