56
votes
Accepted
Why did SCSI require so many pins?
SCSI, I think, is a serial interface.
No, it isn't. SCSI das defined as a parallel interface for high speed data transfer. Though there are modern incarnations using serial transfer, while being ...
- 195k
21
votes
Accepted
What were practical uses of SCSI floppy drives?
When you're designing a system you might want to avoid messing with floppy controllers. Just implement a SCSI interface as a one-for-all and use SCSI drives, no matter what medium. Clean approach.
- 3,793
18
votes
Accepted
How can I take an image of a 50-pin SCSI hard-drive
If "a more modern machine" includes systems with ISA, PCI or PCI Express slots, it should be easy enough to retrieve the data from the drives. You'll need a SCSI adapter (known as a host bus adapter, ...
- 111k
18
votes
Accepted
Are there any "modern" SCSI devices?
You cannot plug or connect any SCSI devices.
That is not an IDE to SCSI adapter.
That is a drive bay for quickly exchanging IDE drives to a computer.
The connector is simply a passive connector for ...
- 24.2k
17
votes
Accepted
Was the ancestor of SCSI, the SASI protocol, nothing more than a draft?
Some parts of SASI were used in the Atari ST family’s ACSI system, in particular for hard drives connected to that interface — see Application Notes on the Atari Computer System Interface for details. ...
- 111k
17
votes
Did Great Valley Products demonstrate full motion video on an Amiga streaming from a SCSI hard disk in 1990?
I don't have particular knowledge about that Commodore show or the GVP demo you saw. However, in late 1990, full-screen video playback was common already for many years on stock Amigas. This was ...
- 59.1k
14
votes
Accepted
How to identify the filesystem for an old SCSI drive?
Yes, this is possible.
The file utility can recognise many disk partition layouts and file systems. If you connect your drives to your Pentium III system, running a version of Linux, they should ...
- 111k
13
votes
Accepted
What is the best way to connect an old Tandberg QIC tape drive using today's computers?
The back looks like a 50 Pin Centronics. I am just not sure how I can connect such a device using modern computers, if at all. Any suggestions or guidances would be much appreciated!
Well, it seems ...
- 195k
13
votes
Accepted
Accessing Old Seagate HDD Model ST4350N
This is a SCSI device, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get the data off the device. You need the following pieces of equipment:
a SCSI controller, known as a host bus adapter (HBA); these are ...
- 111k
13
votes
What were practical uses of SCSI floppy drives?
For non-PC/home computer systems (UNIX workstations, small implementations of mainframe architectures) it could have been cumbersome to use some of the existing floppy controller chips, since they ...
- 5,540
11
votes
What's the pitfalls when trying to connect a new SCSI hard drive to an old SCSI bus?
Bus: yes should negotiate.
Device size: possibly okay. If your OS can issue (and your scsi controller supports) a read(16), then you'll get the full capacity. If it only supports read(10), then it'...
- 242
11
votes
Was the ancestor of SCSI, the SASI protocol, nothing more than a draft?
The SASI protocol, if anything, was used by "The Sider" hard drive for the Apple II series of computers. Though hard drives on the Apple II weren't very common, it wasn't until 1985 that "The Sider" ...
- 15.1k
10
votes
Role of Termcap under contemporary unices
The role of Termcap in contemporary Unix-style systems is the same as it always has been: it provides a library and database allowing software to adapt to the varying capabilities of different ...
- 111k
10
votes
Apple II: What type of partition tables were used?
ProDOS provides a common device driver API for storage systems, but does not specify a partition table format. Rather, the SCSI (or other) HD interface card has firmware to map partitions to ProDOS ...
- 59.1k
9
votes
Why did SCSI require so many pins?
Then why did SCSI require so many pins?
Differential signaling.
The original standard was actually a 25-pin system using an 8-bit parallel signal going in one direction only. There was a separate ...
- 17.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Apple II SCSI: Maximum drive / partition size?
The SCSI controller is not a limiting factor. The Apple II SCSI controller electronics, and SCSI protocol, would support accessing the blocks of a very large disk. However, managing those blocks is ...
- 59.1k
8
votes
How do I connect an IDE hard drive to an Amiga 4000 tower?
The Amiga A4000T is the only Amiga to include both a SCSI-II controller and an IDE interface on the motherboard. And, if you can believe the entry in the BBOAH is also THE RAREST home computer ever, ...
- 59.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Can't boot FAT32 larger than 2GB, unlike FAT16
My hypothesis is as follows:
The last time you successfully formatted the drive to be bootable, you did it with something that only understands FAT16 booting, so it installed a boot sector that only ...
- 5,651
7
votes
SCSI to USB interface
There’s a related question, How can I take an image of a 50-pin SCSI hard-drive, which covers most approaches available to connect a 50-pin SCSI drive to a recent-ish computer.
Limiting options to a ...
- 111k
7
votes
What's the pitfalls when trying to connect a new SCSI hard drive to an old SCSI bus?
Almost all SCSI devices are either 8-bit wide and have a 50-pin connector with single-ended (open collector, no differential drive) electrical signals, or
are 16-bit wide, using LVD differential ...
- 2,150
7
votes
Accepted
Multiple mass storage controllers on Amiga 500 or 2000
The Amiga can support multiple mass storage controllers, subject to the following necessary limitations:
Any time multiple controllers are using AutoConfig, each controller must correctly support the ...
- 59.1k
6
votes
Accepted
Using floppy disk interface on Future Domain TMC-1680 SCSI ISA card
It's a normal 8272-style floppy interface that just happens to be on the same card as the SCSI controller. It should work in any motherboard with ISA slots, provided the motherboard doesn't have an ...
- 6,540
6
votes
Was the ancestor of SCSI, the SASI protocol, nothing more than a draft?
The point is: When SASI was en vogue (and that was only a very short timeframe, because technology was soon superseded with SCSI and the simpler ST506 and later ATA standards), hard disks weren't very ...
- 30.1k
6
votes
What is the best way to connect an old Tandberg QIC tape drive using today's computers?
The first thing you need to do is to open the front door of the drive and inspect the rubber roller that drives the tape. It is not uncommon for the roller on old drives to have deteriorated into a ...
- 11.3k
6
votes
Cannot "see" a SCSI2SD device from a Mac SE/30 in any configuration
By default (without being patched), Apple's stock disk partitioning utility refuses to recognize any SCSI hard drive that isn't on an approved whitelist. This decision to block non-Apple-approved SCSI ...
- 61
5
votes
Role of Termcap under contemporary unices
Erm. I think here are a few misunderstandings at work.
Termcap is a descriptional database about terminal features (*1), not device configurations.
In sense of Unix terminals aren't devices, but ...
- 195k
5
votes
How to connect an Apple IIe to an external Sider hard disk drive
I've never used these, but look around on comp.sys.apple2 for answers to your questions ...
There are rumours that some of the later Sider models were actually SCSI. Almost all were SASI, which need ...
- 7,078
5
votes
Retrieving Files from Power Mac 7600
USB-SCSI adapters were made, but they weren't manufactured in great numbers, the controller ICs are now out of production, and, at least for the one featured on Adrian's Digital Basement, didn't ...
- 5,651
4
votes
How to connect an Apple IIe to an external Sider hard disk drive
If you want to access what is on the disk, most likely you'll need the Xebec SASI interface card (this is what came with the Sider). The ROM versions on the card could make a difference since there ...
- 15.1k
4
votes
Are there any "modern" SCSI devices?
There's the SCSI2SD which lets you use an SD card as a SCSI hard drive. Other than that, I'm not aware of any recent SCSI devices. Also, SCSI doesn't provide power, making it less suitable for fans or ...
- 8,892
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible