CF AztecMonsters have landed

[sirwiggum]

The Plus never had an HDD.

Though it does boot off 800k floppy and I'm hoping to use a SCSI ZIP drive at some point.

[uniserver]

yes i've used scsi zip as a boot drive it works quite well!
almost as fast as a slow hard drive

[pl212]

it should work just fine with a Plus as well.

So actually on the 3.5" CF AztecMonster there's a special note in the manual:

Mac Plus does not boot from this card normally. You must cut #40pin RST fuction from flat cable. CF card volume is recommended under 2GB.

[krye]

I too can't believe that these things are $129! Technology is cheap, why so expensive? Is it because some guy is making these in his garage?

Eventually, and I mean like 20 years from now, do you know how impossible it's going be to get your hands on a working 50 pin SCSI drive? I needed a new drive for my Classic the other day and the cheapest one I could find on eBay was $22 bucks! Why are these things not $5 a pop? I can't believe people are charging upwards of $100-$150 dollars for a 200MB hard drive. I want my Classic Macs to last forever. I want my kids to enjoy them when they're my age. Eventually, all the hard drives are going to die. It would be great to replace all the drives with CF cards, but not at $129 a pop.

[LOOM]

I'm not sure, but I think someone said somewhere that this is just a guy in Japan developing on his own and had them made in China or something.. I'm pretty sure it costs a lot to produce these niche cards. Who would buy these cards if you don't want them for some vintage amiga/mac SCSI-1 project?
Some years ago a big manufacturer made SCSI->IDE converters, mass produced them and sold them for $80 or something.. I can understand the $129 price

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

That'd be ACARD, ISTR their adapters costing more than $80, so I never got one for hobby purposes.

p. 4 post: if mr. Sakai is using the ACARD ASIC, he's probably paying a pretty penny for them.

The only reason technology seems cheap would be the quantities of scale achievable in production for mass markets. Technology for niche markets, as opposed to the consumer market, is still quite expensive.

These cards are too expensive for my hobby budget, but U160 HDDs and adapters are working quite nicely. Even used, U160 drives will probably be working in 20 years and they're almost obscenely inexpensive by comparison.

Whatever the market will bear is whatever will be charged.

[trag]

I'm not going to go through it again, but if you search up my explanation of why the Artmix SE/30 PDS passthrough/Daystar adapter is so expensive, that explanation applies to this device just as well.

But the earlier explanations are essentially correct. It's the small quantities. It's hard to build and sell anything for under $100 when the quantities are in the dozens or hundreds without giving away your time for free.

[register]

I would agree that the price Artmix asks for his CF-SCSI adapter is quite fair. Compared to the original price I paid for a PowerBook harddisk it is cheap. A 500 MB drive in 2.5" form factor came in the price region of USD 500…1.000 in the early 1990s. In fact, a long lasting 100 dollar replacement for such device is a bargain, as long as you do not look for the dollars per MB of storage. Of course it is a pity that old technology does barely benefit from current storage prices. At least we still have an option while other similar products reach end of production one by one.

[billynomates]

This is all very interesting. I have to say the price wasn't that bad. Anyway, some really good information here. I've taken delivery of my Aztec Monster and installed it in an SE/30. It seems that the hardware's okay. I can format and mount a 1GB CF card with HD Speed Tools 3.3, but after copying a blessed system folder over, I can't boot. I get a sad mac indicating the partition map is bad.

I've tried this same process a number of times, and each time it's the same result.

I can also format the CF using patched HD 7.5.3 setup, although this is unusable, with any writes (including the one to name the device post formatting) causing bus / address errors. Often I have to power cycle the machine to get control back. Occasionally I'll have to (debian linux) gparted the CompactFlash disk clean, before it will be recognised again.

Performance when copying files to or from the CF 'feels' quicker - for example, the time spent on each cycle of read/write when copying using the finder is significantly lower on the CF phase. I'll aim to get some stats from a stock SE/30 once I can boot from the compact flash.

I'm using 7.5.3 or 7.5.5 (preferably).

Any ideas, or general advice you could share?

Thanks.

[tt]

It seems some cards are easier to format than others. You could try another formatting utility, such as Anubis by CharisMac. After formatting check to make sure write errors are not happening with a disk utility like Norton before committing to thinking the process is completed. Are you running internally? If the termination is active via jumper, it will not boot on my machine.

[billynomates]

The terminator is not set - the jumper is not there. I've also tried a range of SCSI ids, and a couple of different cards - this one (1GB) and a 32MB one, with no luck. I'll try the anubis software - thanks.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'm not going to go through it again, but if you search up my explanation of why the Artmix SE/30 PDS passthrough/Daystar adapter is so expensive, that explanation applies to this device just as well.

As I understand it the Artmix board is insanely expensive due to the fact that's not just a slot expansion device, the PAL converts one of the two slots to a IIci Cache Slot. for accelerators. It is also quite large.

I think we can probably come up with a simplified, straight thru multiple slot, PDS expansion adapter. That'd be a boon to those lacking a PowerCache accelerator who don't wish to mutila . . . erm . . . do the WrongAnglePDSpassthruHack™ to several rare PDS cards.

[tt]

4-layer boards per square inch are very expensive for prototype runs. We need some kind of kickstarter for these kind of projects.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The Artmix board appears to be two sided from the highres pics I have on file. The size of the thing cut down to just a PDS bus slot multiplier would still be a consideration for two sided protoboards.

trag, got linkage to your explanation?

[billynomates]

Very strange - the anubis software works, in that I can format the drive and copy the driver on to it, but again, when I try and boot I get a sad mac, and the codes indicating there's no partition map.

Also the formatting / driver writing process seems a little flaky. Occasionally I'll get a bus/address type error, and I'll have to start again. Terminated / unterminated and on the internal or external SCSI (mounted in a CD300 enclosure) seems to make no difference.

I've not low-level formatted these CFs... as, to tell the truth, I can't find the options to let me do that in the Anubis or HD SpeedTools software..! Perhaps it's something to do with terminology, and I'm looking for the wrong thing. I'm wondering if that's the problem, or if it's something to do with the SE/30 itself. It's been re-capped, and has been happily running A/UX for some years without too many issues.

If anyone needs any pictures, I can certainly help out there while it's out of my mac... What do you need specifically?

[tt]

Hmm... how many partitions? Did you do a clean system install or copy? One time I had to re-bless using System Picker instead of dragging sys files since I had two partitions and multiple system folders, and somehow the boot disk setting got thrown off. Maybe try System Picker and after try a new system install. With Anubis make sure blind writes is disabled for the drivers.

[billynomates]

Only the one partition, and just a copied system folder from an older SCSI disk with a 7.5.3 and a 7.5.5 system folder on it.

The folder is copied over un-blessed, and then blessed on the CF.

The computer shows a happy mac (for less than a second) before playing the chimes of doom.

Thanks for the suggestion - I think I'll try a clean install, as if I don't copy the system folder onto the CF, I just get a flashing question mark when trying to boot from the CF, which I would have thought is a good thing from a driver point of view!?

[billynomates]

Still no cigar. A clean installation gets 'An error occurred while trying to complete the installation. Installation was cancelled, leaving your disk untouched.' after some minutes. It doesn't matter if I do a quick install or a custom install (with only the System Software).

It goes through the installation until 'Reading Apple Guide: Shortcuts', where it says 'closing files', and looks like it's finishing the installation - but mighty quickly. Then the above error pops up.

There's nothing on the CF when I checked it. The activity light does flash occasionally (can't tell if it's reads or writes), and I can copy stuff to and fro to my hearts desire, using the hfs that the Anubis software installs. If I leave a System Folder on the CF when I install, the installer recognises it (with appropriate version / upgrade messages), and won't allow me to use the disk.

I've tried another Crucial 128M card. Same results.

Blind writes are disabled for both. And I've tried with a range of SCSI ids, internal / external enclosure, and termination.

[register]

How about Harddisk Toolkit? We found various results from perfectly operational to unusable for different combinations of adapter, computer and flash storage device in combination with formatting software. Compare your results with suggestions on the webpage Flash drive test results and consider to be so kind to share your experience there, also.

[billynomates]

I've tried a few of them, but could get none of them to start. Maybe the files are busted / flattened. I'm also not sure what OS / version combination to use. 7.5.3 seems to work with Hard Disk Speedtools 3.3, whereas it won't run with 7.5.5. Anubis seems to run on either.

[trag]

The Artmix board appears to be two sided from the highres pics I have on file. The size of the thing cut down to just a PDS bus slot multiplier would still be a consideration for two sided protoboards.

trag, got linkage to your explanation?

I can't seem to turn it up. I found this which mentions it back in 2008.

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=51475#p51475

It could be that I posted it before the board crash, or I may have posted it over at AppleFritter.

It boiled down to an analysis of what just the raw parts cost in small quantities and even though there isn't a lot going on on that board, it's still probably $20 worth of parts not counting the circuit board. The circuit board is big, so even if it is two layer, it may be another $20 by itself. And I'm pretty sure that Seed Studio wasn't around when he had those made. Then add it assembly cost for a small run, or cost of time to do it himself, plus storage. Handling sales and mailing them out, while always good news, is also a time consuming effort.

In the case of the SE/30 PDS adapter, apparently he had to have a large run made at once, so he also has time cost of money, and the risk that he won't sell enough to pay his costs. It's tough. When you don't know the size of your market, and you must buy 500 of something, in order to buy any of them, do you then sell them for (total cost/500) X (1 + % profit)? Or do you worry that you might not sell them all and so sell them for (total cost / 250) X (1 + % profit)? Realizing that the latter higher price will lower your rate of sales.

It sounds like the Monster is being run in smaller batches, so his risk cost may not factor into it. However, smaller runs usually means higher costs all around.

I think he has a very business-like pricing structure. I doubt that he's loosing money, but he's not profiteering either.

[tt]

Also factor in the PDS board went through a rev change, so he may have scrap inventory. I think he said it had to do with changing the grounding design. If it is priced to keep him interested to keep going for a while, I'm all for it. Support the makers...

[tt]

It goes through the installation until 'Reading Apple Guide: Shortcuts', where it says 'closing files', and looks like it's finishing the installation - but mighty quickly. Then the above error pops up.

There's nothing on the CF when I checked it. The activity light does flash occasionally (can't tell if it's reads or writes), and I can copy stuff to and fro to my hearts desire, using the hfs that the Anubis software installs. If I leave a System Folder on the CF when I install, the installer recognises it (with appropriate version / upgrade messages), and won't allow me to use the disk.

Sounds like instability in transfers, could be CF, PowerMonster, SE/30, bad installer, or formatting drivers. If you can try another machine. Those cards sound smallish and maybe are too slow, if that could be an issue? I am kind of stumped, basically you have to try to change each variable. Also try running Norton disk tools to check for errors, maybe it can fix them to at least get booting.

[billynomates]

Kind of thought as much. I guess the next step is to buy a new CF card that is a little quicker - these cards are a bit old.

Thanks for all your help - much appreciated.

[billynomates]

Looks like I've got to the bottom of this.

Now working, although I still can't clean install System 7.5.3, so maybe something's wrong with my copy.

Anyway, the key was to boot 7.5.3, install the Anubis driver, then low level format using Drive Setup 1.6. This took well over an hour for a 1GB CF card.

I've now dragged a 7.5.5 system folder over, and everything's pretty normal.

Hope this helps someone else.