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Need help getting SCSI CDrom working in GS-OS for Apple IIgs

Verault

Well-known member
I have an Apple IIgs with a Scsi card and I want to get a Cdrom working with it. This computer has a scsi harddrive with GS-OS 6.0.4 it boots to. I have a known working External Apple 300 CDrom drive I am trying to use but I also have a couple 3rd party external scsi cdroms as well. I loaded the Media Control panel and here is a photo.

IMG_20221120_131744.jpg
From what I have seen online I should see a SCSI entry under "select a port" Its not there. What have I missed? Is there a walktrhough I can use for setting up a CDrom correctly on GS-OS?
 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
I am assuming you are using an Apple SCSI card. Out of the box, the CD-ROM drive should just work for data using the included SCSI card and SCSI CD-ROM drivers. CD Audio control will NOT work however. The built in drivers only support the CD-SC and CD-SC+ audio playback commands. There are generic "SCSI-2" CD Audio control drivers that you have to install to enable audio CD playback.

 

Verault

Well-known member
Mine is definitely not an Apple branded one. I went through ever single disk image for SCSI and they pretty much all say "apple scsi card not found".



Here is a screenshot of the onboard scsi utility built into the SCSI cards rom. You can see the hard drive shows up as SCSI ID #0 and the CDROM is ID #4

IMG_20221122_094820.jpg

IMG_20221122_094820.jpg

I do have the utility disk for this card and I was reading the PDF manual (which also tells me the correct jumpers which are set already) and on the section for IIGs it does list CDroms and zip drives so that implies it works with them. There was a driver file it said to add to GS-OS system/drivers folder which I did. I had more access to partitions and it changed the icons so I know the driver worked. Still no cdrom though.
 

Verault

Well-known member
Not a IIgs guy, but you are probably dealing with a termination issue.
With that said that ls a very neat thing I have to try, making a GS-OS live CD. Thanks for the link.



Something else important to note: We all thought the CMS card kind of stinks because it can only address any two 32MB prodos partitions at one time, but that turns out to not be entirely true. With the CMS GS-OS driver file I mentioned in my previous post enabled, you have access to ALL partitions under GS-OS at once! So now I am booting GS-OS and I have to sit through 68 notifications (there are sixty-seven 32MB partitions and one slightly less) of an un-initialized 32MB volule, Should I eject or Initialize! Yikes. I thought there as a GS-OS limit as to how many prodos drives the system can handle at once. Wasnt it 8 or 16 total? I gave up at 9.

What If I swap out my CMS scsi card for my Apple FAST SCSI card or my brand new GGLABS A2SCSI card and keep the first 3 or 4 32MB prodos partitions but convert the remainder of the drive into 4GB HFS (thats the max IIgs can see right?) partitions so I only have a few drives. Think that will work? Then put the CMS card back in and use the drive without so many partitions
 
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Verault

Well-known member
Well From what I learned online it seems the issue is the driver file. The ONLY widely supported driver under GS-OS is for the AppleCD SC Apples first HUGE caddy driven 1x model. And thats why they go for big money.

Its a shame, I know alot of people use emulators now in replacement of real hardware but lots of us still have plenty of the real things. I have at least 8 or 10 Apple CD 300 drives in both external and internal models that still work fine. They are super easy to find. Why has noone made a driver file for them or maybe a generic SCSI cd driver? I am no programmer but I know there is so much new software coming out, even GS-OS 6.0.4 is new, why hasnt there been updated CDrom support?
 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
The CMS cards don't support anything besides hard drives properly. GS/OS only comes with drivers for Apple SCSI cards. I have a RamFAST card and it supports CD-ROM drives and audio playback (via Media Control CDA only!) with its own drivers. The driver I linked to above is the generic SCSI-2 CD-ROM audio control drivers for Apple cards which work with the CD300 and newer drives and the Media Control CDA.
 

Verault

Well-known member
The CMS cards don't support anything besides hard drives properly. GS/OS only comes with drivers for Apple SCSI cards. I have a RamFAST card and it supports CD-ROM drives and audio playback (via Media Control CDA only!) with its own drivers. The driver I linked to above is the generic SCSI-2 CD-ROM audio control drivers for Apple cards which work with the CD300 and newer drives and the Media Control CDA.
IT says right on page one of the CMS manual "(hard drives, CD-Roms, etc)" https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net/documentation/hardware/storage/disks/CMS SCSI 2.0 Manual.pdf

Just below that it mentions support for "(Zip, jazz, syquest, CD-Rom)" Why would they add that to the manual if it was not supported?

But just to reiterate I connected my Apple RAM fast scsi and GGlabs scsi card and still couldnt get my cdroms working. I get the impression its driver related but who knows.

Thanks for the link to the other audio driver, I did need that.
 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
You need the following in the System:Drivers folder for Apple branded cards:
SCSI.Manager
SCSICD.Driver
SCSIHD.Driver

You also need the HS.FST (High Sierra/ISO9660) installed to System:FSTs be able to read CD-ROMs that are not ProDOS or HFS formatted.

Unlike any other SCSI card, Apple built their driver stack upon a base SCSI Manager driver with additional loadable modules. With the correct drivers installed, using a SCSI CD-ROM drive in GS/OS should be plug and play. They even get their own special drive icons on the desktop! Just remember that stock Apple SCSI cards don't supply termination power to the bus. I don't have direct experience with Apple's cards, but I know the RamFAST worked fine with much newer SCSI CD-RW drives without a problem.
 

Verault

Well-known member
I didnt want to leave the thread hanging too long. I verified I have all the files NJRoadfan listed but my appleCD 300 will still not load on my CMS scsi card.

I guess my question would be is there anyone on the forum with a IIGs with a SCSI card and an external Apple CD300 or CD600 that can try to see if they have any luck?
 

Skate323k137

Well-known member
I didnt want to leave the thread hanging too long. I verified I have all the files NJRoadfan listed but my appleCD 300 will still not load on my CMS scsi card.

I guess my question would be is there anyone on the forum with a IIGs with a SCSI card and an external Apple CD300 or CD600 that can try to see if they have any luck?
No appropriate optical drive sadly, but I do have an extra GGLabs SCSI card...
 

Verault

Well-known member
Really? I figured you would have one. Just the external 300 alone is great for loading stuff on Old macs without a floppy from the Apple Legacy OS cd. Boot to the CD then load one of the many OS's direct from the CD installer. I found it to be so easy for stuff like that. That and the External Apple CD drives are built like tanks. Slow but reliable.
 
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Skate323k137

Well-known member
Really? I figured you would have one. Just the external 300 alone is great for loading stuff on Old macs without a floppy from the Apple Legacy OS cd. Slow but reliable.
I had to re-start my collection less than 10 years ago, so unfortunately there are still some things I haven't replaced or don't know if I will at todays market rates. To make a long story short, after Hurricane Katrina, I went from my home in MI to NOLA to work for several months. While I was gone my parents decided they were selling their house, and didn't tell me until I got home that it was literally on the market. I'm pretty sure it's a classic "my parents sold these off at a garage sale behind my back" situation. Thankfully patient craigslist searching and even some eBay finds, as well as my old [apple and macintosh] knowledge and soldering skills, have really helped me re-build the collection.
 

Verault

Well-known member
I get it. While I was away in the NAVY my "friends" who I had asked to watch over some of my retro stuff took it upon themselves to draw conclusions like 1.) I was never coming back (maybe they thought I would die in combat?! I dunno 2.) This stuff was old junk why did he ask us to hold onto it? and 3.) MY entire collection of old 5.25" and 3.5" Floppy disks were clearly junk, noone uses those anymore. In the trash they went.

So I divided all my household items amongst a bunch of people as to not have to put everything in storage and not to burden any one person. Basically that was not a good choice. Most of my "friends" did similar things with all my stuff. The only stuff safe was what I put in storage.

Some things just cant be replaced.
 

Skate323k137

Well-known member
Some things just cant be replaced.
I hear ya. That's rough to hear your story too. The only machines I really miss are my sisters Powerbook 190 she left me when she graduated college, and the Powermac 7500 I bought with paper route money. I could hardly name the rest of the machines anymore, mostly 68k macs and 486 PCs.

If I get time to mess around with the various SCSI emulator devices I do have, I'll let you know. It would mainly be a curiosity (CD's on a IIgs) and my IIgs isn't on the workbench or desk at the moment.
 
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