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MacSD - new SCSI SD card emulation tool

LaPorta

Well-known member
Alright, well, the important thing here, regardless of how anyone took how the other said something, is that the 5.1s are back in stock, this retailer has them, and if you choose to buy them from him or not is your business.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
@aperezbios - Please disengage from this thread, unless discussion shifts and you've got something technical or stock related to answer.

Feedback and commentary was offered about something you managed, you addressed it, and now we don't need to continue this line of discussion.

 

tt

Well-known member
@Trash80toHP_Mini Nah, people should know who they're dealing with. Not the first time I've seen this behavior from "Intertial".

Has anyone pulled the trigger on this new SCSI drive replacement? I was thinking of getting another SCSI2SD, but I want to try the MacSD to see how it compares. It seems like it could be a game changer, but currently there's unfortunately little info about it.

 

maceffects

Well-known member
I figured I should chime in.  I actually know the guy who makes these great boards.  He even sent me an early prototype for testing purposes.  I, for one, am thrilled that an alternative to SCSI2SD exists that is more Mac friendly.  I've had tons of issues with them so finding one exclusively for the Mac is wonderful.  That said I did get the SCSI2SD to work in *some* of my systems but they hated the Mac SE & SE/30 for whatever reason.  So, if anyone is on the fence, you really should consider MacSD. 

 

Byte Knight

Well-known member
Does anyone know if there's a way to wire up the drive activity light (on the SE, SE/30) with the MacSD like you can with the SCSI2SD?

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I figured I should chime in.  I actually know the guy who makes these great boards.  He even sent me an early prototype for testing purposes.
Do you happen to know if there's any way I can get one or two sent to the UK?  The tindie store won't let me order with delivery to the UK... (sorry if you are in the dark about this too but you're more likely to know that I do)

 

ymk

Well-known member
Hi everyone.  I'm the creator of MacSD.  It's good to be here and I'm happy to answer your questions.

Cory5412 - I've been asked about >4GB disk images.  This is currently in development.  You'll be able to use primary partitions directly as disk images.  All of the FAT32 options will remain.

maceffects - I appreciate the support!

Byte Knight - The lines powering the eight LEDs on the edge of the board (including SCSI activity) run through the expansion header.  All external LEDs share a common cathode line, also on the expansion header.  Any color LED can be used, however current is only around 1mA so I recommend using a modern, high intensity type.  Brightness will be adjustable through the config file.  The firmware and documentation for this feature has not been released yet, but is coming soon.

cheesestraws - I've added shipping options on Tindie for Europe.

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
LOL! Welcome aboard, you beat me to the punch by about 30 seconds:

Time to reboot for this page post-hiatus it seems: http://macsd.com/

MacSD-000.JPG

Screen cap that won't vanish with the eBay listing.

What really caught my eye: Expansion port - Reserved for future functionality - 24 pins, one wonders if any might be set up/mapped to a familiar GPIO interface?

@maceffects any chance you're in on and not NDA'd as to technical info about that interface or plans for its use? Right about now would be the perfect time to suggest that your friend to jump in here.

 
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Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
The expansion port was not designed around an existing standard.
Gotcha, that's what I figured when you said the activity LED could be plugged in to it, but left my post text alone other than welcoming you aboard within seconds of your first post. Very nice product! Any teasers about future expansion plans possible at this point?

edit: GAH! did this reboot of the topic just a few posts too soon.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Time to reboot for this page post-hiatus it seems: http://macsd.com/

View attachment 37419

Screen cap that won't vanish with the eBay listing.

 
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Byte Knight

Well-known member
Byte Knight - The lines powering the eight LEDs on the edge of the board (including SCSI activity) run through the expansion header.  All external LEDs share a common cathode line, also on the expansion header.  Any color LED can be used, however current is only around 1mA so I recommend using a modern, high intensity type.  Brightness will be adjustable through the config file.  The firmware and documentation for this feature has not been released yet, but is coming soon.
Sweet - ordered!  And you can ignore the same question that I sent to you on Tindie.

 

maceffects

Well-known member
@ymk Glad to have you aboard!  I'm not sure if I understood the LED aspect.  Are you saying one of the header connections would power an external LED?  I'd be beyond excited for that because with the clear case SE/30 it looks great to have that light working.  I just realized you are still updating the firmware so I'll keep an eye on that to keep the latest version on the boards. 

@Trash80toHP_Mini I have no official connection with him, we've just done a lot of business together and he does nice work.  That was the reason for my recommendation.  To me the only downside was the LED header which it sounds like is corrected so I may need to order some more :)

 

Byte Knight

Well-known member
I asked this same question in the RaSCSI thread, but any idea if this would work with the Apple IIgs with SCSI card?

 

maceffects

Well-known member
I asked this same question in the RaSCSI thread, but any idea if this would work with the Apple IIgs with SCSI card?
I don't know for sure but I am personally inclined to believe it would given that it bypasses much of the configuration of the SCSI2SD. 

 

ymk

Well-known member
Glad to have you aboard!  I'm not sure if I understood the LED aspect.  Are you saying one of the header connections would power an external LED?  I'd be beyond excited for that because with the clear case SE/30 it looks great to have that light working.  I just realized you are still updating the firmware so I'll keep an eye on that to keep the latest version on the boards. 


All eight of the indicator LEDs on the edge can be mirrored to external LEDs.  Nine pins on the expansion header can be used for LEDs (eight anodes and a common cathode).

I asked this same question in the RaSCSI thread, but any idea if this would work with the Apple IIgs with SCSI card?


I've done no testing with Apple II.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
If I'm interpreting what this device does that explicitly makes it Mac-friendly correctly, that depends on the Apple IIgs working well with the same SCSI devices Macs use. However, for IIgs there are also lots of other extant options including the focus IDE card (what I've got in mine), floppyemu, which will run smartport HDs on the II, and CFFA, which operates on a somewhat similar concept to this, except that it has an inline control panel for image swapping.

@ymk - welcome in!

With regard to >4GB images, I'm curious what the demand for that is like. Only '040 Macs will officially run volumes over 4GB, and your'e kind of getting closer at that point to the brief window where the SCSI2SD v6 makes more sense, for performance reasons, and then after that, where SATA cards make more sense. I can imagine a couple use cases for it, myself, but I'm also among the relatively few people I'm aware of running 2TB volumes  Classic Mac OS at all. (Although, like, 

With regard to partitioning, what would that look like in terms of setup and configuration? It would seem like the biggest advantage you've really got here is that this device was "designed with the needs of the vintage Mac community in mind", I feel like it would be fair to describe it as explicitly to the exclusion of other platforms and applications where scsi2sd is also used (i.e. it's unlikely one of these will work in a synthesizer or a traffic light or a UNIX machine) and a big part of that is the simplicity afforded by the way this thing is configured.

The people among us creating SCSI2SD preloads would be able to change to just zipping up the contents of the FAT32 filesystem as a download and people can avoid, say, DD or managing partitioning entirely.

If this is in the docs, you can be like "hey, uh, RTFM" and I will at some point. I don't have the budget for one of these so this is purely speculation on my part.

 

ymk

Well-known member
There are no disadvantages to implementing >4GB images.  This is something 040 and PPC owners have been interested in, in addition to the CD audio and changer functions.  For example, you could use fdisk to divide a 32GB card into a 20GB FAT32 partition and a 12GB hard drive image.  A drive entry in the config file could point to an image file on the FAT32 partition or to the entire 12GB partition.  

"designed with the needs of the vintage Mac community in mind"


That is the general idea, but not a direct quote. 

I feel like it would be fair to describe it as explicitly to the exclusion of other platforms and applications where scsi2sd is also used (i.e. it's unlikely one of these will work in a synthesizer or a traffic light or a UNIX machine) and a big part of that is the simplicity afforded by the way this thing is configured.


While my primary focus is Macs, there's no reason MacSD cannot work on other SCSI platforms.  It is being tested on Amiga, SGI, Sun, RS/6000, etc by others.  I will describe it as unsuitable for applications supporting human life (as are its individual components and the SD card).  Nobody should be using this in a traffic light.  Everything else is fair game.

I'm not concerned whether features I add to MacSD already exist in other products.  Everyone benefits from the new options and capabilities.

The ini file configuration in no way limits the MacSD's capabilities.  Config files run entire operating systems.  In addition to convenience, it solves the problems of:

  • Keeping firmware and configuration utilities updated in tandem
  • Migrating configuration on firmware updates
  • On-chip configurations valid only for a particular card



If you don't want to bother with >4GB images and fdisk; if all you need is a single HDD, your config file is two lines long.  Easy is not the opposite of powerful.

 

ymk

Well-known member
Gotcha, that's what I figured when you said the activity LED could be plugged in to it, but left my post text alone other than welcoming you aboard within seconds of your first post. Very nice product! Any teasers about future expansion plans possible at this point?


Thanks!  No plans for add-ons at the moment.

 
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