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Convert IDE Zip, CD-ROM, etc. to LVD-SCSI with IBM aCard AEC-7722

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Got one of these on eBay for about $21 do something stupid/silly with as usual. :rolleyes: Now wondering if it might be of practical use?

In a thread somewhere, it was mentioned that External SCSI Zip Drives have become pricey. Internal SCSI Zips have been really expensive for at least ten years. So using the IBM aCard AEC-7722 ATAPI to LVD-SCSI Bridge Adapter and a relatively inexpensive internal Zip might be workable? Using it requires LVDS to 50pin adapter. Printing an external case for such a Zip bodge might be interesting?

Any suggestions about whether this might work or not before I unearth the boxed up clear SE/30 case containing this pile of bits? @trag whatcha thinking?
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
One of these (trag will have the answer) only works with optical drives, it wouldn't surprise me if this is that version.

Using an external device is probably the better answer in this scenario, but to be honest as mroe and more zip and optical drives die, solutions like the scsi2sd v5.5 which you can hang directly off the back of a DB25 port are probably going to be among the better long term solutions for "removable" media long term.

That's in addition to and/or for bring up -- networking is a better day to day solution for moving data amongst old macs.
 

MacKilRoy

Well-known member
One of these (trag will have the answer) only works with optical drives, it wouldn't surprise me if this is that version.

Using an external device is probably the better answer in this scenario, but to be honest as mroe and more zip and optical drives die, solutions like the scsi2sd v5.5 which you can hang directly off the back of a DB25 port are probably going to be among the better long term solutions for "removable" media long term.

That's in addition to and/or for bring up -- networking is a better day to day solution for moving data amongst old macs.

I purchased that ACARD on eBay and also an inexpensive ATAPI magneto optical drive (internal IDE) and I could not make it function with the MO driver extension or be seen on the SCSI bus. So either the adapter was busted, the drive was busted, or it just doesn’t work on a Mac period.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
I haven't tried mine yet, but got it for a laptop CD. It's the SATA to IDE/ATAPI bridge in between that's stupid!

How'd I know you'd suggest networking, C? ;)

Yuck! 🤪
 

chillin

Well-known member
Isn't SCSI backwards compatible? I would not expect (getting a SCSI adapter to work) to have anything to do with the platform, just esoteric SCSI stuff at worst.
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Isn't SCSI backwards compatible?

Electrically -- yes, typically. There can be some concerns such as HVD and LVD so you need to make sure signaling voltage matches but in general it's known you can hook a 15k server disk from 2004 up to a Mac Plus.

In the case of these acard adapters, if I remember right the firmware on them was designed for ATAPI only. Basically, a cost reduced version of a real adapter/bridge device meant to fill a specific niche.

In theory MacKillRoy's adapter could have worked but it's possible that the SCSI MO drivers were expecting... a SCSI device, not an ATAPI one. So the device probably shows up in System Profiler or on a SCSI troubleshooting tool but any given device may not have drivers or be supported in the base OS. (So the adapter worked and the drivers didn't is where this was going.)

How'd I know you'd suggest networking, C? ;)

Yuck! 🤪

:D

In both modern and vintage computing, my theory is that sneakernetting only becomes faster, overall, for absurdly large amounts of data. Even on slow networks such as LocalTalk and even on platforms that are bad at everything, like Macs.

Even when the overall raw transfer speed would be faster using removable cartridges, I tend to prefer networking for the convenience. You can e.g. start a transfer and then come back when it's finished instead of having to handle multiple transfer segments or copies onto and off of removable media.

There's also just using data directly off of network shares which speeds up the whole process that much more, but that kind of gets into some

If I remember right, most of the Macs within your wheelhouse have Ethernet and run system 7/8/9 anyway so you're in prime "have you considered running a server?" territory. AppleShare/AFP is among the better behaved and more performant applications Macs can run over ethernet and TCP/IP. Pretty much anything short of audio/video projects should work well on networked storage. (And to be honest even those may work well there, I haven't tried -- modern video editing workflows often feature networked storage heavily, so it's just a matter of how well classic macos and apps handle it.
 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
I purchased that ACARD on eBay and also an inexpensive ATAPI magneto optical drive (internal IDE) and I could not make it function with the MO driver extension or be seen on the SCSI bus. So either the adapter was busted, the drive was busted, or it just doesn’t work on a Mac period.
More than likely the driver was looking for the drive on the IDE/ATAP bus and not on SCSI unless they made an SCSI version as well.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
I'm thinking that Zip Drives/Drivers are ubiquitous, iomega supported everything. If something non-ATAPI/Optical will work using that adapter on the Mac, it'll likely be a Zip Drive.
 

MacKilRoy

Well-known member
More than likely the driver was looking for the drive on the IDE/ATAP bus and not on SCSI unless they made an SCSI version as well.

I totally agree with that as the most likely cause. Unfortunately, I don't have any other ATAPI devices to really test with, so it sits in a box.

I wonder if I could install a real hard disk driver on a MO disk using something like LIDO or FWB, and insert the disk into the drive with it off, and then turn everything on and see if it recognizes it then. That trick often fools the Mac into working with the device. Looks like I need to test further!
 

trag

Well-known member
I don't know if the 7222 will work with a ZIP drive becasue I don't know if the ZIP drive presents itself as a SCSI storage device (hard drive) or as an ATAPI device.

Without a firmware hack-date the 7222 will only support optical/ATAPI devices. After you hack/update the firmware, it will only support hard drives and no longer supports ATAPI devices.
 

trag

Well-known member
I haven't done any work on this project in the last few weeks. For a while I was waiting for heat sinks to chase hte reliability problems and more recently, I'm obsessing over my 2021 taxes to get everything where it needs to be.
 
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