RaSCSI Development Thread

sfiera · Aug 5, 2020

Assuming it’s just raw HFS disk images you need, here are some premade ones along the lines of Gryphel’s blanks. Blank images compress down really well, so whenever you need one, you just decompress a new disk. The Gryphel blanks are generally small (400K floppies up to a couple hundred megs) but I’ve included images up to 2GB.

View attachment blanks.tar.xz

sfiera · Aug 5, 2020

Having thought about it more, you probably want Apple Partition Map files, not just HFS images, so the process outlined above is a better bet. Sorry!

landoGriffin · Aug 7, 2020

Happy Friday everyone! A couple updates....

I think the web interface is ready for folks to start trying out! I've been testing it out today and it seems to work. I'd love for someone to try it out and give me some feedback. (I realize that there aren't many people who have working RaSCSI devices.... yet ;-) ) Setup instructions are available here:

https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/wiki/Web-Interface

I've got 10 RaSCSI boards that should be delivered in the next few days, along with a ton of 74LS641s. If I didn't dork anything up with the design, I hopefully will have some to send out to folks in a week or so.

PotatoFi · Aug 8, 2020

The amount of progress that you've made on this is shocking! When boards and parts are available, I'd love to buy one!

davidg5678 · Aug 8, 2020

PotatoFi said:
The amount of progress that you've made on this is shocking! When boards and parts are available, I'd love to buy one!

I completely agree! This looks like it could have a lot more Mac-specific potential than SCSI2SD in the future. The Raspberry Pi opens up so many possibilities for fun things to do with the computers!

I can't wait until the mythical Pi-PDS accelerator/network bridge & server/ethernet & WiFi/video out & grayscale cards become a thing though. :lol: This project is certainly a great step in that direction!

erichelgeson · Aug 8, 2020

PotatoFi said:
I'd love to buy one

Me too - I do web/*nix/backend development by day - would love to dig into how this all works!

360alaska · Aug 8, 2020

I'd be interested in building a few but do you have a parts list and programming instructions or sd image? I saw the gerbers but maybe I missed the other stuff.

landoGriffin · Aug 8, 2020

360alaska said:
I'd be interested in building a few but do you have a parts list and programming instructions or sd image? I saw the gerbers but maybe I missed the other stuff.

Draft software setup instructions are on the wiki:

https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/wiki/Setup-Instructions

Its on my to-do list to make a downloadable image with everything set up already. But, there are only so many hours in the day.

There are a couple different versions floating around out there.

@K55 has a version here: https://github.com/fran-cap/RASCSI-68kmlaver

A bunch of the signals are swapped on it, so it will take some modifications or special software
K55 was able to get it to work, but I haven't tried.

[*]My version 1.5 is available here: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/tree/master/hw/Dual_Connector_RaSCSI

There is one error that will require a cut & jumper wire. Its outlined here: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/issues/10
This is the only known working version (that I have tested)
Schematic: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/blob/master/hw/Dual_Connector_RaSCSI/rascsi_din.sch.pdf
BOM: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/blob/master/hw/Dual_Connector_RaSCSI/rascsi_din_bom.csv

[*]Version 2.1 has been designed and is on its way from China

This has a LOT of tiny surface mount components. It was intended for automated manufacturing for those parts
It hasn't been tested yet.
Schematic: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/blob/master/hw/rascsi_2p1/rascsi_2p1_sch.pdf
BOM: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI/blob/master/hw/rascsi_2p1/rascsi_2p1_bom_jlcpcb.csv

If 2.1 works properly, I'm planning on doing a bigger order and offering them up for sale. I'm not planing on making a profit on them or anything. Just trying to get them in bulk to get the price down.

I welcome any updates to the wiki. If you have a github account, you should be able to make updates. If there are things that are unclear, feel free to create an Issue on Github or just ask on the forum. I check the forum more than I care to admit....

landoGriffin · Aug 9, 2020

What do you guys think about keeping "SASI" support in the code? In the Apple realm, I don't believe it has ever been used.

Part of me wants to strip it out to help remove some complexity from the code. If someone really wants SASI support, they could fall back on the original GIMONS version of the code.

Any thoughts/opinions?

techknight · Aug 11, 2020

Ooooo this is neat. I wonder if this can be expanded on? Such as emulating a SCSI-Ethernet adapter instead of SCSI HDD? Say for example you had a SCSI Ethernet emulation, you could have your Appletalk fileshares running on that Pi, you could have an appletalk print server/bridge, the web proxy, etc... all in a "one stop shop" kinda thing. Might able to emulate the Scuznet protocol that another project here has done.

Even plug in USB Sticks formatted as HFS (from newer macs), and be able to mount them as disks or AFP shares.

Anyways, besides all that, I am not sure how you got around the "non RTOS" nature of the Pi and bit-banging across the GPIO. ive had issues with that, especially in applications that require things to happen at specific times.

cheesestraws · Aug 11, 2020

techknight said:
Ooooo this is neat. I wonder if this can be expanded on? Such as emulating a SCSI-Ethernet adapter instead of SCSI HDD? Say for example you had a SCSI Ethernet emulation, you could have your Appletalk fileshares running on that Pi, you could have an appletalk print server/bridge, the web proxy, etc... all in a "one stop shop" kinda thing. Might able to emulate the Scuznet protocol that another project here has done.

Yeah, I've been very tempted to attack this as a project. I had a look through the source code and more or less understand what's going on. The scuznet is based on an existing ethernet over SCSI protocol, so drivers already exist for it, and the documentation for that would be useful.

What I'd really like is work out how to write MacTCP / Open Transport IP drivers and write something that offloads IP processing to the Pi, or better still SSL. Anyone know how to write those?

techknight · Aug 11, 2020

I am still in favor of a split-process browser where the engine runs on a Pi or other ARM CPU, and only the Chrome runs on the Mac OS side. the Web proxies kinda do that already, but instead of feeding images, its simply true framebuffer space so you can interact with it natively like a regular browser of today.

But I digress...

sfiera · Aug 11, 2020

RaSCSI implements network device emulation already, but the driver that uses it is implemented only for X68000. I'd guess that emulating the same device as Scuznet is probably easier than implementing a new Classic driver, but that could have advantages.

landoGriffin · Aug 11, 2020

FYI.... my house was hit with the storm that came through the Midwest yesterday. I’m without power or cell service, so I’ll be quiet for a few days

(nothing broken that can’t be replaced, so counting my blessings)

kerobaros · Aug 11, 2020

We got it here in central Illinois too. Where are you located?

Trash80toHP_Mini · Aug 11, 2020

Oh man, sorry to hear about the problems you're having up there. Ft. Wayne/Terre Haute childhood here. I miss watching Thunderheads roam the landscape, but this is something quite different. Beginning to really hate the weather patterns and lack of off seasons here in NC.

Question: will RaSCSI support the higher transfer rates of Fast/Narrow SCSI for better performance overall?

landoGriffin · Aug 11, 2020

kerobaros said:
We got it here in central Illinois too. Where are you located?

Cedar Rapids IA here. They're thinking it will "several days" until we have power again. :-O

Trash80toHP_Mini said:
Question: will RaSCSI support the higher transfer rates of Fast/Narrow SCSI for better performance overall?

Possibly, someday? No immediate plans. My personal use case is for early/mid 1990's Macs, which wont be able to take advantage of the additional speed.

techknight said:
Even plug in USB Sticks formatted as HFS (from newer macs), and be able to mount them as disks or AFP shares.

I like it!! Mounting them as disks would probably take some custom drivers on the Mac side. But as my Electrical Engineer friends say... "Software can fix anything"

Long term... I'd like to migrate this to use the RT Linux extensions for the SCSI bit banging. One step at a time though!

cheesestraws · Aug 11, 2020

techknight said:
Even plug in USB Sticks formatted as HFS (from newer macs), and be able to mount them as disks

landoGriffin said:
Mounting them as disks would probably take some custom drivers on the Mac side

I'm not convinced it would, actually. How does this sound (very handwavy):

Implement a "raw partition" disc image format. This acts like the existing "hard disc in a file" format, except that once its calculated the offset to look at, it does something a bit cleverer. If the offset is where the partition table should be, we synthesise a "fake" partition table based on the size of the raw partition file; if the offset is where the driver partition would be, we serve back a bit of a SCSI driver; otherwise, we subtract the size of the fake partition table + the SCSI driver and use that offset into the file. This lets you deal with a partition that just contains the HFS filesystem, without having to worry about the disc that surrounds it.
- problem: we don't have an open source SCSI disc driver (as far as I know, do we?). We could use one of the existing ones but it would be legally perhaps questionable.
Create a udev rule or similar that watches for USB sticks with an appropriate partition type, then signals RaSCSI to use the device as the image file for a raw partition image.

If you wanted dynamic mounting support, where you plug a USB stick in and it just mounts, it would probably require code on the Mac side, yeah; but I suspect if you emulated a removable drive with the disc image strategy I outlined above, you could at least use a SCSI mounting utility to mount them in a "hotswap" kind of way, even if it wouldn't automatically mount.

This is all just random "this idea just occurred to me" so may not be feasible, but it feels doable.

landoGriffin said:
Cedar Rapids IA here. They're thinking it will "several days" until we have power again. :-O

That sounds utterly miserable. Stay safe, I hope things improve soon

CC_333 · Aug 11, 2020

Trash80toHP_Mini said:
Beginning to really hate the weather patterns and lack of off seasons here in NC.

At least you have rain. Over here in CA, it's pretty much endless fire danger (of varying intensity) except a few months between late February and early June where it's at its minimum; this period is basically the same as the rest of the year, except cooler, and usually with at least some rain.

So, miserable as it may be at times, be glad you have rain! You don't want to live in fire country during an extreme drought, as I've been doing for many years now....

Hurricanes, though. They're kinda the east/southeast coast equivalent of our fires, I guess?

Anyway, back on topic...

c

saybur · Aug 11, 2020

landoGriffin said:
Cedar Rapids IA here. They're thinking it will "several days" until we have power again. :-O

Hey, a fellow Iowan! I'm glad to hear you were OK, that was one wild storm. We just got power back a few hours ago in Ames, so hopefully they'll get things fixed for you soon.

RaSCSI Development Thread

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