readme.txt

   1 SCSI2SD, The SCSI Hard Drive Emulator for retro computing.
   2
   3 Traditional hard drives last 5 years*. Maybe, if you're luckly, you'll get 10
   4 years of service from a particular drive. The lubricants wear out, the spindles
   5 rust. SCSI2SD is a modern replacement for failed drives. It allows the use of
   6 vintage computer hardware long after their mechanical drives fail. The use of
   7 SD memory cards solves the problem of transferring data between the vintage
   8 computer and a modern PC (who still has access to a working floppy drive ?)
   9
  10 *All statistics are made up.
  11
  12
  13 Features
  14
  15     In-built active terminator.
  16     Can optional supply terminator power back to the SCSI bus
  17     Emulates up to 4 SCSI devices
  18     Supports sector sizes from 64 bytes to 8192 bytes
  19     Firmware updatable over USB
  20     Highly configurable over USB
  21         Selectable SCSI ID
  22         Selectable parity support
  23         Enable/disable Unit Attention Condition
  24         Artificial limits on the SCSI disk size (eg. limit size to 4G to avoid OS bugs)
  25         Sector size (can also be set via the SCSI MODE SELECT command, as sent by SCSI format utilities).
  26
  27
  28 Technical Specifications
  29
  30 SCSI Interface
  31         SCSI-2 Narrow 8-bit 50-pin connector. Supports asynchronous transfers only.
  32 SD Card Interface
  33         Standard SDSC (1GB maximum size)
  34         SDHC, SDXC
  35         Communication is via the SPI protocol at 25MHz.
  36 Power
  37         5V via standard molex drive connector.
  38 Dimensions
  39         10cm x 10cm x 1.5cm
  40         Mounting holes to suit standard 2.5" - 3.5" drive bracket.
  41
  42
  43 Performance
  44
  45 As currently implemented:
  46
  47 Transfer size:    512        2048        8192        65536
  48 -------------------------------------------------------
  49 read:                   2MB/s     2.1MB/s     2.5MB/s     2.6MB/s
  50 write:                  125kB/s   441kB/s     1.5MB/s     2.3MB/s
  51 -------------------------------------------------------
  52
  53
  54 Tested with a 16GB class 10 SD card, via the commands:
  55
  56  # WRITE TEST
  57  sudo dd bs=${SIZE} count=100 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX oflag=dsync
  58
  59  # READ TEST
  60  sudo dd bs=${SIZE} count=100 if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null
  61
  62 Compatibility
  63  Computer systems
  64
  65     Mac LC-III and LC-475
  66     Mac II running System 6.0.8
  67     Mac SE/30
  68     Apple IIgs using Apple II High Speed SCSI controller card (from v3.3)
  69     Symbolics Lisp Machine XL1200, using 1280 byte sectors (from v3.4)
  70     PDP-11/73 running RSX11M+ V4.6
  71     Microvax 3100 Model 80 running VMS 7.3 (needs patch against v3.5.2 firmware)
  72     Amiga 500+ with GVP A530
  73     Atari TT030 System V
  74     Atari MEGA STE
  75         needs J3 TERMPWR jumper
  76         1GB limit (--blocks=2048000)
  77     Sharp X68000
  78         SASI models supported. See gamesx.com for information on building a custom cable.
  79         needs J3 TERMPWR jumper
  80         Set to SCSI ID 3. ID0 will not work.
  81     Compaq XP-1000 Professional Workstation
  82         Alpha 21264 CPU, 667MHz, with a QLogic SCSI controller in a PCI slot
  83     SCSI-based Macintosh Powerbooks (2.5" SCSI2SD)
  84         Also reported to work on Thinkpad 860 running Win NT 4.0 PowerPC.
  85         Data General MV/2500DC running AOS/VS
  86                 Vendor: MICROoP
  87                 Product: 1578-15       UP
  88                 Revision: DG02
  89                 Device-type modifier: 0x4c
  90
  91 Samplers
  92
  93     Roland JS-30 Sampler
  94     Akai S1000, S3200, S3000XL, MPC 2000XL, DPS 12
  95         SCSI cable reversed on S3200
  96         There are compatibility problems with the Akai MPC3000. It works (slowly) with the alternate Vailixi OS with multi-sector transfers disabled.
  97     EMU Emulator E4X with EOS 3.00b and E6400 (classic) with Eos 4.01
  98     Ensoniq ASR-X, ASR-10 (from v3.4, 2GB size limit)
  99         ASR-20 Requires TERMPWR jumper.
 100         ASR-X resets when writing to devices > 2Gb.
 101     Kurzweil K2000R
 102         See kurzweil.com for size limits which a dependant on the OS version. Older OS versions have a 1GB limit.
 103         SCSI cable reversed
 104     Casio FZ-20M
 105         Requires TERMPWR jumper. The manual shows the pin25 of the DB25 connector is "not connected".
 106         May require scsi2sd-config --apple flag
 107     Yamaha A5000, A3000, EX5, EX5R
 108
 109 Other
 110
 111     HP 16601A, 16700A logic analyzers
 112     Fluke 9100 series
 113         Reftek RT-72A Seismic datalogger.
 114                 http://www.iris.iris.edu/passcal/Reftek/72A-R-005-00.1.pdf
 115                 http://www.iris.iris.edu/passcal/Manual/rtfm.s3a.13.html