Compact Flash in se/30

[shaun]

Hi all,

I'm messing about with an SE/30 just now and wondered if anyone has managed to get compact flash cards working with them instead of hard disks.

I'm using an ACARD AEC-7720U which I managed to find on eBay for about $15 See http://tinyurl.com/2zoekk

And another eBay purchase IDE to Compact Flash adaptor ($5).

And a 4GB Compact Flash card.

The ACARD plugs into the SCSI cable in the Mac and you then plug in an IDE drive or in my case the Compact Flash adaptor. In theory it should all work however it's not for me.

If I plug the Compact Flash adaptor into a PC's IDE cable, it comes up ok as if it were a hard disk. If I plug an old IDE hard disk into the ACARD and the Mac, it sees it as a hard disk. Plugging the Compact Flash adaptor in to the ACARD and the Mac however doesn't work.

Apple's HD SC Setup 7.3.5 (Patched) doesn't see it at all.

SCSI Probe says 'No Data'

FWB Hard Disk Toolbox 2.0.5 says it's of type 'Processor' and won't do anything else.

Storeware 3.0 won't read it.

LaCie SilverLining v5.4 says it's a read only cartridge.

Is there any other software that might see it or is it dependent on the type or size of Compact Flash Card?

System 7.5.5 on the SE/30 btw with 80MB of RAM, Shiva Network card and currently a 1GB SCSI disk that makes the screen wobble a little, hence the search for a less power hungry solution.

 

[equill]

... Apple's HD SC Setup 7.3.5 (Patched) doesn't see it at all.SCSI Probe says 'No Data'

FWB Hard Disk Toolbox 2.0.5 says it's of type 'Processor' and won't do anything else.

Storeware 3.0 won't read it.

LaCie SilverLining v5.4 says it's a read only cartridge.

A couple of comments/suggestions, but no promises. Silverlining v5.x knows nowt about ATA. That comes with v6, and certainly that is when the light of USB dawns, at least with v6.2.1, which I use from SE/30 to the end of the 68K machines.

System 7.5.5 on the SE/30 btw with 80MB of RAM, Shiva Network card and currently a 1GB SCSI disk that makes the screen wobble a little, hence the search for a less power hungry solution.

JDW, 003 and others had posted about power requirements and additional PSUs in upgraded SE/30s in the Pre-Dive. Those threads now being gone, you might try a PM to JDW for some of his experience.

de

 

[Charlieman]

Great project and I hope it works.

Try a different CF card. Even an 8MB card is good enough to install System 6 on an SE/30. From everything that I have read, CF-->IDE adapters are fussy about the card which will work.

Try the combination in a more conventional Mac. The SE/30 and early Mac IIs have quirks.

 

[quicksilver]

See my thread over at 68Kmla. I'm looking to do the same thing off a SCSI port. Some ideas but haven't bought anything to try yet.

 

[Bunsen]

See if you can format the card to an HFS drive on an ATA Mac, then move it to the SCSI adapter. Just a thought.

 

[Quadraman]

Does anyone make a 50 pin SCSI to CF adapter? I'd be interested in replacing some of my hard drives, too.

 

[Bunsen]

Only Artmix as far as anyone knows. I'm going to try SCSI->PCMCIA->CF as soon as my SCSI->PCMCIA box arrives.

 

[JDW]

System 7.5.5 on the SE/30 btw with 80MB of RAM, Shiva Network card and currently a 1GB SCSI disk that makes the screen wobble a little, hence the search for a less power hungry solution.

JDW, 003 and others had posted about power requirements and additional PSUs in upgraded SE/30s in the Pre-Dive. Those threads now being gone, you might try a PM to JDW for some of his experience.

Didn't see any PM for me today, so I suppose I will post a response in the thread...

I uploaded a photo of my hard drive to Flickr this evening. I added a description so you can see how I used the drive in the past and how I use it now.

On a separate but related topic, I acquired a rare Mac 512k with a 20MB Hyperdrive off EBAY recently. I was shocked to open the case only to see that it had pretty much the same drive and PSU setup that I myself devised for adding the DGHS internally! I have started a new thread on that, with photos and descriptions. In a nutshell, the Hyperdrive setup is almost exacly the same as my SE/30 secondary PSU implementation, with the exception that GCC added more noise filters and chokes to the power line, which probably would have been a good idea for me to do as well.

 

[Flash!]

You can get 'flash cards' with an IDE socket on them already - meaning that once you sort out the SCSI to IDE adaptor, you don't need a CF card adaptor as well. Just plug in what looks like one of ye olde SCSI terminators (seriously it's like the size of the IDE connector x2) and away you go. Less parts, less $$, less space..... I'll check out specfically what make/model they are at work tomorrow...we've just bought a box of 50 to put into some XP embedded boxes we're building.

 

[shaun]

I couldn't get the compact flash adaptor to work at all in the Mac so I tried to sort out what was causing the issue.

First I ditched the CF adaptor. I've no other CF cards than the 4GB one currently so I couldn't test to see if different brands/sizes of cards would work and randomly buying stuff from eBay could get expensive.

Next I plugged in a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adaptor and an old 6GB Toshiba laptop drive from an old Compaq. That worked but I was getting bus errors transferring data between drives. I was powering the extra drives from an old PC power supply so as to eliminate any power issues too to no avail.

Next I plugged in a 13.6GB 3.5" Maxtor IDE drive and that worked absolutely perfectly. Model No is 91366U4. Not so surprising given that the later Maxtor drives are listed as compatible by ACARD.

However, the goal was to swap the 1GB SCSI drive out which was causing a wobbly screen for something less power hungry. The thinking was that the drive was causing the wobble on the screen due to power issues.

Anyway, I noticed that the screen wasn't wobbling when the old SCSI drive was out from under the screen so the wobble must be caused by electromagnetic radiation from the drive in proximity to the screen. The odd thing is that it's an IBM 1GB drive pulled from another Apple with 'Apple approved' on it.

So, I reassembled everything with the 13GB Maxtor drive in and the ACARD SCSI-IDE bridge in place. It sticks out sideways towards the PSU so I wasn't sure it would fit, but it does with about 1mm to spare. The card sticks down lower than the drive so you have to tilt the drive slightly or dremel a slot in the drive tray in which the card can sit.

I switched the Mac back on to find there was no interference or wobble on the screen. [] ]'>

So, I've left the 13GB drive in there. It's almost silent too so that's a bonus and with a 2MB cache and 7200rpm it's quite a bit quicker than the old drive. Speedometer rates it at over 3x quicker than a Mac Classic.

I'm not sure what I'll do with 13GB of space on an SE/30 and with a 10Mbit ethernet card it's no server, but it's a nice machine now and free from screen wobble.

 

[Bunsen]

Happy squeals from me! [] ]'>

Later I suppose you could try a Maxtor laptop drive, or an IBM Microdrive.

You can get 'flash cards' with an IDE socket on them already ...we've just bought a box of 50 to put into some XP embedded boxes we're building.

Approx $/GB ratio? And are they sized in GB or Gb?

See my thread over at 68Kmla. I'm looking to do the same thing off a SCSI port. Some ideas but haven't bought anything to try yet.

That would be at the PPCMLA, non? I'll delete the nitpick when you edit.

I'll let you know how the SCSI-PCMCIA stunt goes.

 

[Flash!]

And are they sized in GB or Gb?

b'n'B....bits 'n' bytes...stick a big G in front of that and it's still a big number The ones we are using are only 1GB (our XPe OS is only 300MB so there was no need to go bigger), but they are available up to 4GB and I guess 8GB is on the horizon... 1GB cards are costing us about $35, though they retail at about double that.

I forgot to check out the make/model, I'll look tomorrow....

 

[Flash!]

Here's the URL to those IDE flash cards:

http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=26&LangNo=0

 

[Quadraman]

Only Artmix as far as anyone knows. I'm going to try SCSI->PCMCIA->CF as soon as my SCSI->PCMCIA box arrives.

Hmm...site is in Japanese. Has anyone ordered from this company?

 

[JDW]

Yes, I have ordered from ARTMIX. When you write them, owner Manabu Sakai will respond to you in English (not perfect, but readable). He accepts PayPal payments. But watch out! If you ask too many questions, he'll get his feathers ruffled. He likes people who pay him money without too many questions (don't we all). More specifically, I've had run-ins with the man in the past over my performance-related questions concerning his CF adapter solution. He absolutely refuses to give you a straight answer, just citing a bunch of meaningless techno-jargon. I asked him how the performance "feels" when using his CF card solution versus a normal hard disk (tests he certain has done himself), but he would only cite specs. I personally don't care about the theory, I want to know the experimental! But since no one on this site or other classic Mac sites have purchased this particular product from Manabu before, there is no written report for us (real world usage data). Hence, you would be the first to acquire one of these and offer us some insight.

 

[Kallikak]

Have you seen this?

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/hardware/pb150/

 

[Flash!]

I haven't seen that one specifically, but I've seen a few like it. It's a whole lot easier when you don't have to worry about putting in a SCSI to IDE adaptor

 

[Kallikak]

Are there issues with the number of rewrites?

 

[JDW]

Kallikak & Flash!, perhaps you two gentlemen could persuade your fellow countryman, Greg Ewing, to pursue a SCSI Flash hack! And it's not like there's a plethora of SCSI options are there for Flash either, as there are for IDE.

Of course, the best possible flash solution for the SE/30 is a Solid State Disk. But I've yet to find one that is reasonably priced, even after all these years of there being manufactured and sold in 4GB sizes (ideal for the SE/30). The benefits of the SSD is that it has built-in remapping which gives you a longer useful life out of the flash drive. Most SSDs I've seen guarantee 11 years or more. Without remapping, and using a common CF card solution (even like what Manabu Sakai offers), you very well may only get a couple years of useful life out of it. SSD's also have more performance optimizations, which may even be of some benefit on our slow SE/30's SCSI implementation. (Keep in mind that the SE/30 doesn't support hard drive DMA, only PIO -- sorry, I don't know which PIO mode though).