rabbitholecomputing
Vendor The First
For anyone who might have a use case or interest in the ability to read and write to SCSI HDDs on "modern" machines/operating systems (any OS that supports USB Mass Storage Devices/flash drives), check out the latest ZuluSCSI firmware preview release, which enables most ZuluSCSI RP2040 boards to function as a USB-attached SCSI controller, allowing you to read *and write *to/from most SCSI block storage devices, such as HDDs/Zip/Jaz/MO/Syquest drives, with any modern OS/computer that supports USB Mass Storage devices. Due to hardware limitations, through is limited to around 800 kilobytes/second, but this is still significantly faster than many of the original Zip and Syquest drives that were shipped in the early-mid 90s.
If you already have an RP2040-based ZuluSCSI (red PCB), all you need to do use this functionality is update your firmware to the release at https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/releases/tag/v2024.12.24-USB-MSC-SCSI and then remove the SD card from your ZuluSCSI, and connect your ZuluSCSI to a modern computer via USB. So far, I've tested this against a handful of different SCSI hard drives, a Zip drives, an AppleCD 300i CD-ROM drive, and a much newer Plextor SCSI CD-ROM drive. Tape drives are not supported at this time, as implementing support for emulating the tape transport commands requires additional effort and testing to get working reliably.
DVD-RAM drives should also work, but have not been tested. If you try it out and have questions about this feature/functionality, please ask them at https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/discussions/491
If you already have an RP2040-based ZuluSCSI (red PCB), all you need to do use this functionality is update your firmware to the release at https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/releases/tag/v2024.12.24-USB-MSC-SCSI and then remove the SD card from your ZuluSCSI, and connect your ZuluSCSI to a modern computer via USB. So far, I've tested this against a handful of different SCSI hard drives, a Zip drives, an AppleCD 300i CD-ROM drive, and a much newer Plextor SCSI CD-ROM drive. Tape drives are not supported at this time, as implementing support for emulating the tape transport commands requires additional effort and testing to get working reliably.
DVD-RAM drives should also work, but have not been tested. If you try it out and have questions about this feature/functionality, please ask them at https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/discussions/491
Initiator-capable ZuluSCSI models
- All Full-size ZuluSCSI RP2040 boards
- Full-size (desktop) ZuluSCSI Pico (OSHW) board
- ZuluSCSI Compact RP2040 Rev 2023b - available for USD $52
- ZuluSCSI Compact Homebrew Rev 2023b - a through-hole-only kit version, available for USD $42.42
ZuluSCSI models that do not support initiator mode
- All ZuluSCSI V1.0/V1.1/V1.2-based boards (blue PCB)
- ZuluSCSI Pico Slim (DB25)
- ZuluSCSI Mini
- ZuluSCSI Compact RP2040 Rev 2022a