Using a memory stick instead of a hard drive on 68k Macs

[jukingeo]

Hello all,

I had a question that just popped into my mind. I had seen an adapter that changes USB to SCSI and since the hard drives that are in the old 68k Macs are SCSI drives, it did get me to thinking if there was an adapter that would go the other way around, meaning SCSI to USB. My reasoning is that I have some older 2gig memory sticks lying around and one of these could certainly make for a great "hard drive" for a 68k Mac IF it could be made to run on it.

So, is it possible?

Thanx,

Geo

 

[LCGuy]

Its practically one of those "Holy Grail" ideas....it'd be wonderful if such a device existed, and it'd no doubt be extremely popular if such a device existed, unfortunately it doesn't, and I can't see it ever happening. The closest thing you can really get would be a CompactFlash card, which you could use via a SCSI -> IDE adaptor, and then an IDE -> CompactFlash adaptor. Or if you're made of money, a SCSI -> SATA adaptor and a SATA SSD. Those are really the only ways to get solid state storage on a vintage Mac, there's simply no easy way to connect USB devices to SCSI - while there were chipsets made for converting USB to SCSI in order to connect a SCSI device to a USB bus, they only go one way, there were no chipsets ever made for converting SCSI to USB.

 

[jukingeo]

Its practically one of those "Holy Grail" ideas....it'd be wonderful if such a device existed, and it'd no doubt be extremely popular if such a device existed, unfortunately it doesn't, and I can't see it ever happening. The closest thing you can really get would be a CompactFlash card, which you could use via a SCSI -> IDE adaptor, and then an IDE -> CompactFlash adaptor. Or if you're made of money, a SCSI -> SATA adaptor and a SATA SSD. Those are really the only ways to get solid state storage on a vintage Mac, there's simply no easy way to connect USB devices to SCSI - while there were chipsets made for converting USB to SCSI in order to connect a SCSI device to a USB bus, they only go one way, there were no chipsets ever made for converting SCSI to USB.

Heck, I had to ask! But it does sound like the SCSI-IDE-FLASH would come closer to reality. That would be an interesting setup...the main question would be if you could boot from it.

Geo

 

[Gorgonops]

Heck, I had to ask! But it does sound like the SCSI-IDE-FLASH would come closer to reality. That would be an interesting setup...the main question would be if you could boot from it.

Pretty sure people have done it. It's just expensive once you've added up the price of the converters, and there's some black magic involved in making certain combinations of adapter work. Google around and you'll find recommendations. Just be prepared for sticker shock.

 

[tt]

For SCSI->IDE->CF check-out this active topic: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12050

 

[johnklos]

Heck, I had to ask! But it does sound like the SCSI-IDE-FLASH would come closer to reality. That would be an interesting setup...the main question would be if you could boot from it.

I just posted some benchmarks of exactly this setup a couple of days ago:

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12050&start=50#p123985

Yes, you can certainly boot from it.

 

[jukingeo]

Ok, I just saw that thread under the Classic Mac thread. I will read through it. Thanx for the tip off!

Geo