SCSI/IDE bridge cards for PBs

[equill]

I have an (Acard?) bridge with part number A360025 on a label on the reverse side, and A360027 silk-screened on the component side in addition to EC YC0055B, Made in Japan, and Copyright ADTX.

There are two Toshiba 150ns memory chips (TC558128AJ-15), corresponding to nothing listed by Chipmunk, an 8-position DIL switch with only 4&5 ON, and logic chips by Texas (2), Lattice (1), Symbios Logic (1), K(?) (1) and something covered with a label reading 10TA32, 96/9/07 in two lines.

It came in a PB, attached to a nonfunctioning IDE HDD, and has not so far worked with any other 2.5-in IDE drive. Given the increasing scarcity of 2.5-in SCSI drives, we may all be driven to use of such bridges in the near future. Is there any knowledge of this card, its maker and possible sources of more of (or alternatives to) it?

de

 

[Maccess]

Yes,

here's the mothership:

Acard

There are also SCSI > CF adaptors (great if you want to put an ultra fast, low power consumption CF card in your powerbook). I can't remember the link. I think it was in some Japanese page. CF cards are as large as 64GB, but those more than $1,000. A reasonably priced CF is from 2GB to 4GB. It's also compatible with Microdrives.

 

[Bunsen]

I think there's an upper limit of 4 or 6 GB on those adapters. /edit/ by which I mean the older ones that were used in Apple SCSI laptops for >750MB HDs

 

[Maccess]

Isn't that limit when referring to the gray powerbooks (pre-Wallstreet) with IDE drives being used in SCSI disk mode? I think that was a ROM issue. greater than 4GB PB internal IDE drive = Can't be used in SCSI disk mode.

SCSI to IDE adaptors are limited only by the controller's capabilities (137GB), but some will have 48-bit LBA, which has a much higher limit.

In practical terms, it's the OS that will limit drive size. None of the PPC Powerbooks have a SCSI Internal drive (except an upgraded 5xx).

 

[equill]

Yes, here's the mothership ...

Thank you for that. I hadn't found that URL in my last trawl a few months ago, or perhaps the site has been beautified in the meantime.

My card may not be an Acard bridge (ADTX?), or Acard, not unlike many manufacturers, may not wish to remember products that it once made, but the P/N A360027 does not appear on that site. There was, I discovered before, another maker of such bridge cards for PowerBooks, but perhaps held in less esteem. Any which way, I need to turn some sods, as my stock of small 2.5-in. SCSI drives is getting to be smaller than that of small IDE drives.

de

 

[Bunsen]

Isn't that limit / a ROM issue. / None of the PPC Powerbooks have a SCSI Internal drive

Unless you count a Duo 2300 ... dunno if they shipped with them or not, but they could have. BTW nowhere do I say anything about PPC Powerbooks.

I have one Apple-labelled 1.2ish GB 2.5" IDE drive mounted on a SCSI-IDE adapter, but I have no idea what machine it was stripped from.

MacDan knows all

ADTX may still make their adapter, at least it is still listed on their website. This was the unit Apple sold, as a 1GB drive for use in the scsi PBs. The same drive/adapter combo was sold by aftermarket vendors /
With the Apple 1GB + ADTX PB SCSI drive, you can replace the drive / However my ADTX adapters can recognize only a max of ~8GB

 

[equill]

Thank you too, Bunsen. MacDan's links directly to ADTX pages bring only Forbidden and 403 Errors, unfortunately, but the link to

http://mickey.lucifier.net/adtx/

is more rewarding, and consoles me that perhaps the ADTX card in my hand is not, after all, a hallucination. Not much comfort on the supply side, however.

de

 

[Maccess]

Isn't that limit / a ROM issue. / None of the PPC Powerbooks have a SCSI Internal drive

Unless you count a Duo 2300 ... dunno if they shipped with them or not, but they could have. BTW nowhere do I say anything about PPC Powerbooks.

None of the Duo 2300s had internal SCSI drives.

However, there is a SCSI internal drive interface on the 2300 board intended for upgraders from the 2xx duo series who wished to use their internal SCSI drives with the upgrade board.