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     Emulates up to 4 SCSI devices
  17     Supports sector sizes from 64 bytes to 8192 bytes
  18     Firmware updatable over USB
  19     Highly configurable over USB
  20         Selectable SCSI ID
  21         Selectable parity support
  22         Enable/disable Unit Attention Condition
  23         Artificial limits on the SCSI disk size (eg. limit size to 4G to avoid OS bugs)
  24         Sector size (can also be set via the SCSI MODE SELECT command, as sent by SCSI format utilities).
  25
  26
  27 Technical Specifications
  28
  29 SCSI Interface
  30         SCSI-2 Narrow 8-bit 50-pin connector. Supports asynchronous transfers only.
  31 SD Card Interface
  32         Standard SDSC (1GB maximum size)
  33         SDHC, SDXC
  34         Communication is via the SPI protocol at 25MHz.
  35 Power
  36         5V via standard molex drive connector.
  37 Dimensions
  38         10cm x 10cm x 1.5cm
  39         Mounting holes to suit standard 2.5" - 3.5" drive bracket.
  40
  41
  42 Performance
  43
  44 As currently implemented:
  45
  46 Transfer size:    512        2048        8192        65536
  47 -------------------------------------------------------
  48 read:                   2MB/s     2.1MB/s     2.5MB/s     2.6MB/s
  49 write:                  125kB/s   441kB/s     1.5MB/s     2.3MB/s
  50 -------------------------------------------------------
  51
  52
  53 Tested with a 16GB class 10 SD card, via the commands:
  54
  55  # WRITE TEST
  56  sudo dd bs=${SIZE} count=100 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX oflag=dsync
  57
  58  # READ TEST
  59  sudo dd bs=${SIZE} count=100 if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null
  60
  61 Compatibility
  62  Computer systems
  63
  64     Mac LC-III and LC-475
  65     Mac II running System 6.0.8
  66     Mac SE/30
  67     Apple IIgs using Apple II High Speed SCSI controller card (from v3.3)
  68     Symbolics Lisp Machine XL1200, using 1280 byte sectors (from v3.4)
  69     PDP-11/73 running RSX11M+ V4.6
  70     Microvax 3100 Model 80 running VMS 7.3 (needs patch against v3.5.2 firmware)
  71     Amiga 500+ with GVP A530
  72     Atari TT030 System V
  73     Atari MEGA STE
  74         needs J3 TERMPWR jumper
  75         1GB limit (--blocks=2048000)
  76     Sharp X68000
  77         SASI models supported. See gamesx.com for information on building a custom cable.
  78         needs J3 TERMPWR jumper
  79         Set to SCSI ID 3. ID0 will not work.
  80     Compaq XP-1000 Professional Workstation
  81         Alpha 21264 CPU, 667MHz, with a QLogic SCSI controller in a PCI slot
  82     SCSI-based Macintosh Powerbooks (2.5" SCSI2SD)
  83         Also reported to work on Thinkpad 860 running Win NT 4.0 PowerPC.
  84         Data General MV/2500DC running AOS/VS
  85                 Vendor: MICROoP
  86                 Product: 1578-15       UP
  87                 Revision: DG02
  88                 Device-type modifier: 0x4c
  89
  90 Samplers
  91
  92     Roland JS-30 Sampler
  93     Akai S1000, S3200, S3000XL, MPC 2000XL, DPS 12
  94         SCSI cable reversed on S3200
  95         There are compatibility problems with the Akai MPC3000. It works (slowly) with the alternate Vailixi OS with multi-sector transfers disabled.
  96     EMU Emulator E4X with EOS 3.00b and E6400 (classic) with Eos 4.01
  97     EMU E6400 w/ EOS2.80f
  98     EMU Emax2
  99     Ensoniq ASR-X, ASR-10 (from v3.4, 2GB size limit)
 100         ASR-20 Requires TERMPWR jumper.
 101         ASR-X resets when writing to devices > 2Gb.
 102     Kurzweil K2000R
 103         See kurzweil.com for size limits which a dependant on the OS version. Older OS versions have a 1GB limit.
 104         SCSI cable reversed
 105     Casio FZ-20M
 106         Requires TERMPWR jumper. The manual shows the pin25 of the DB25 connector is "not connected".
 107         May require scsi2sd-config --apple flag
 108     Yamaha A5000, A3000, EX5, EX5R
 109
 110 Other
 111
 112     HP 16601A, 16700A logic analyzers
 113     Fluke 9100 series
 114         Reftek RT-72A Seismic datalogger.
 115                 http://www.iris.iris.edu/passcal/Reftek/72A-R-005-00.1.pdf
 116                 http://www.iris.iris.edu/passcal/Manual/rtfm.s3a.13.html
 117         Konami Simpson's Bowling arcade machine
 118                 http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=3027446