8600 RAM or SCSI2SD Issue?

[MrFahrenheit]

I'm reviving recycling this thread to ask a few relevant questions. I was able to find a Formac ProRAID card. Not really what I was looking for but it will be faster than the built-in scsi. Unfortunately, I'm finding it hard to find normal height 68pin SCSI drives that are a good GB fit. Seems like they're as unusual as 50pin and 80 is the new normal.

Has anyone used this adapter to use a 80pin drive? Also, will a 10k RPM drive bake in an 8600? Or bake the 8600, even worse!

Alternatively, I dug out a Sonnet ATA133 PCI card. The booklet states that OS8 is the min (but I really like 7.6). Is 8 truly the min?
It would seem strange that the more sophisticated ProRAID card can work with 7.6 but an ATA card can't.

In case anyone finds this thread, I thought I would chime in with some of my experience with these SCA 80 to 50 adapters.

The ones I found that worked well were these ones: https://www.datastoragecables.com/scsi/internaladapters/sca80/SM-028.html

You need the extra termination resistors on the adapter for it to work properly. The only you linked to has no termination resistors on it, and likely won't work in a Mac (at least from my experience with various Macs and various drives).

 

[LCARS]

@Cory5412 Are you hopeful that future SCSI2SD revisions might reach the 10MB/s limit of FastSCSI?

Oh yes, with a 25MHz processor, even with a DSP, I can’t imagine it would be an enjoyable experience to try to import video on a 660AV. But props for making the effort in ’93. I remember schools being encouraged to use Apple’s presentation system with those machines. I envision a 660AV roaming an elementary school on those good ol’ AV Carts. "Print to tape" is a phrase that I recall from childhood as well. I was always slightly disappointing that my school's giant (to a kid) AIO PowerMacs couldn't play videos at rate the TV ads portrayed.

Even with the relative ease of DV video on G4 machines, the board ATA limit began to be a real bore as those DV files piled up. The convenience of YouTube is an interesting phenomenon.

Re: QuickTime video conferencing cameras. If you need the software, I’ve got the CD-ROMs. Actually, that’s the reason why I have two 8600s. My first one was found on eBay in 2008, a time when I had neither the time or patience to figure out why the video output didn’t work (bad VRAM).

When the pandemic revealed itself, I quickly realized that I needed some fun projects at home. It was enjoyable getting that machine going and much easier than I thought all those years ago. I had two cameras and to realize my dream of at-home video chatting on classic PowerMacs meant an eBay hunt that revealed only one totally neglected unit. The last stage of this project is to get the in-wall ethernet working.

Re: SCSI setup: Thank you! This will help direct the final project stages.

I'll admit that I know that feeling, if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that these machines will wait for you to get done with whatever's more pressing and/or for you to have the time again, don't feel too pressured to do everything all at once.

I appreciate that sentiment and I agree, these machines are patient. My first 8600 waited at least 11 years, which is frightening to think about. Yet all those years later, it was a-ok.

fun sidenote: Adobe Premiere can do computer control of video decks that have timecode (some SVHS cameras/decks could do this, for example) via serial

I'd have to go downstairs and look at the model number, but I have a Sony VHS deck with a manual that mentions that function. I bought it to actually use the AV function on the 8600 and transfer tapes but ended up using it with an El Gato VHS to computer device (that returns awful resolution). One of these days I'll have the time and parts to connect the two and experience AV PowerMac VHS control and imports.

 

[LCARS]

@MrFahrenheit Thank you. That would have been disappointing. Following your link, is the active termination built in? Or will it require a jumper on the top left pin array?

 

[trag]

Back about when the 8600 was a new machine, the Seagate ST410800 was released, plus or minus a couple of years, possibly.

At that time hard drive space was about $1/MB. The ST410800 sold for $4000 - $5000 which made it about half as expensive as any other storage up to that point. It came in the ST410800N and the ST410800W, for Narrow SCSI and Wide SCSI.

The thing was a full height 5.25" hard drive which would have fit nicely on the bottom of the 8600. When operating, it sounded like you had a tiny washing machine in your computer. I used one for several years as an external archive drive of all my app and files. It was very reliable for me.

Later, thousands of them showed up on the used market for ~$100 but the sellers didn't mention that the drive was the size of two CDROM drives stacked on top of each other.

Good times...

 

[MrFahrenheit]

@MrFahrenheit Thank you. That would have been disappointing. Following your link, is the active termination built in? Or will it require a jumper on the top left pin array?

I have just plugged these into the drives and used them, without configuring them. Per the listing for them, they are meant to be the last device on a chain, so I don't think they're able to have termination disabled. I could be wrong.

 

[Cory5412]

ST410800

Elite 9!

These went up to 47 gigs over the next few years. I want one very much for my own 8600 explicitly for how preposterous the whole thing seems by modern standards.

Unfortunately these cost a lot these days, for whatever reason. I legitimately can't imagine why, in my experience the SCSI2SD v6 can outperform the Elite 9, plus any PCI PowerMac can have an IDE/SATA/USCSI card added if needed.

Are you hopeful that future SCSI2SD revisions might reach the 10MB/s limit of FastSCSI?

So, they already have. In this thread: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/cheap-ide-on-scsi-bus-solution.32521/ joethezombie was able to get 10MB/sec out of a IIfx+jackhammer (or SEIV, I forgot TBH) after replacing the SCSI2SD V6 card and updating the firmware.

At least a few years ago, SCSI2SD v6 would grow leaps and bounds in terms of potential performance with each software update so I recommend doing the updates if you haven't. In addition, they benefit an awful lot from using faster SD cards. Many of them are bundled with a card and the bundled card "works" but is not particularly high performance.

The SCSI2SD v6 is the current undisputed drag champ. I've seen some talk about boot times on other devices and everyone who talks about that seems to have a SCSI2SD v6 that's mis-configured or using a card that's limiting the performance.

If you need the software, I’ve got the CD-ROMs.

Yeah, if you have some time to image those and toss them up on vtools. PM/DM me if you need an account on vtools. (or send me a link and I can put it up) -- I'd be interested in seeing what the netmeeting-alike was like. It might be neat to organize an MLA netmeeting conference.

 

[LCARS]

@MrFahrenheit I thought so. Its good to get some confirmation, thank you.

@Cory5412 It is shocking to look back and see how expensive something that today offers a fraction of the performance (and performance per measurable dollar figure). In college I remember going for a 500GB drive because 1TB was still riding high on its relative novelty.

So, they already have. In this thread: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/cheap-ide-on-scsi-bus-solution.32521/ joethezombie was able to get 10MB/sec out of a IIfx+jackhammer (or SEIV, I forgot TBH) after replacing the SCSI2SD V6 card and updating the firmware.

Oh! I didn't realize. Thank you for the info and link. I updated the rev F firmware and I'm looking forward to seeing how its changed. The SCSI2SD Utilities don't seem to work well on Big Sur (or Big Mistake). Both the V6 and V5 hardware utilities beachball frequently. Plus all the "are you sure, we can't guarantee that this isn't malware" notices are truly annoying. The walled garden feels more like a padded wall garden with non-toxic plastic plants.

Yeah, if you have some time to image those and toss them up on vtools. PM/DM me if you need an account on vtools. (or send me a link and I can put it up) -- I'd be interested in seeing what the netmeeting-alike was like. It might be neat to organize an MLA netmeeting conference.

That would be incredible. I'm certainly onboard with that idea. I can make an image of the disk today. I'm not familiar with vtools. I don't use DropBox or any cloud/hosting site but I can also upload the image to Macintosh Garden/Repository.

 

[LCARS]

Looks like the QuickTime Conferencing software is already up.

SCSI2SD Utility update: Its become totally unusable. I've re-downloaded it (for V6 boards) and it just hangs. While I can see that its ID'd the board and connected, I can't use any drop down menus so I can't load the config settings or make changes. It went from buggy to unusable in about 45 minutes. Has anyone else had this issue under Big Sur?

 

[Cory5412]

Unfortunately I'm not really familiar with the tool on Mac.

The walled garden feels more like a padded wall garden with non-toxic plastic plants.

Yeah, that's one of those tough scenarios where a vendor has to account for the fact that most of the people who are using their platform really do need those training wheels.

If I remember right, you should be able to go to System Preferences -> Security and Privacy and somewhere in there is basically an "I know what I'm doing" switch which should make that a bit better.

I'm not familiar with vtools

oh!

http://vtools.68kmla.org/ (vintage compatible) is a bit of a side project I've been running. It's basically an AppleShare IP server for transfers/projects, personal web hosting, etc. (I'll be moving it to osx 10.4 at some point which I hope will make thing more stable and also allow for bigger disks.)

DM me and I'll make you an account! (One day I'll have a better system for that in place.)

If you have time to image the disc, there's a high chance you've got something that's more complete than what MG/MR have.