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Workgroup Server 9150/120

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
#1 That you have to learn everything yourself.
This seems to be true in all fields though. If you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself. I took my first steps learning BASH yesterday evening. Renaming loads of files is easy and quick once you know what to do.
I didn't mean that you couldn't upgrade it, I would just leave the PSU alone. What are your plans for it? It already has Fast-SCSI, right? So a SCSI2SD v6 might be in order? What can you install in the PDS slot apart from that HPV card and a couple of accelerators?
I don't intend to do anything to the PSU until the magic smoke is released, then I'll be paying your thread on the QuadrATX a visit.
The ideal upgrades are:
1. move the 8x 16MB 80ns 72-pin SIMMS from the PM 8100/400;
2. ATTO Silicon Express IV NuBus card and a 36GB LVD-drive (or two and set up software RAID);
3. move the Sonnet Crescendo 400MHz G3 PDS card with HPV-card from the PM 8100/400 (and turn it into a PM 9150/400);
4. Asanté 10/100 Network card;
5. (Planned) SCSI2SD v6 for either the internal SCSI or the ATTO SE IV, depending on whether the ATTO card is bootable;
 

BadGoldEagle

Well-known member
I found a picture of a prototype 9150 logicboard and it seems to have a 53CF96 NCR chip so Fast-SCSI-2 should be supported from the get go.
Bildschirmfoto 2021-08-28 um 16.24.17.png

From the "Clarification on the Quadra 950's SCSI bus"-Thread:
SCSI-2 can be unenhanced without Fast. I.e. only 5MB/s.

The Q950 only has 5MB/s SCSI support. The 53C96 does not provide support for Fast SCSI-2. You need the 53CF96 for that.

The 53C94 is normal voltage signalling only. The 53C95 is high voltage differential only. The 53C96 supports both regular signaling and HVD.

The 53C96 was licensed to a number of manufacturers. Also, NCR became Symbios, which became LSI Logic (IIRC). I strongly suspect that Apple's MESH chip is just a licensed 53CF96. I've never done the transplant experiment to test it though.

https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/DataSheet/AM53C94_AM53C96.pdf

https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/DataSheet/AM53CF94_AM53CF96.pdf

I can't find any documentation on the Atto, what are the expected transfer speeds on that 50 pin internal connector? Asking for a friend (aka I may have found one locally).

Any idea? @trag ? @ArmorAlley ?
 

trag

Well-known member
I found a picture of a prototype 9150 logicboard and it seems to have a 53CF96 NCR chip so Fast-SCSI-2 should be supported from the get go.
View attachment 33667

From the "Clarification on the Quadra 950's SCSI bus"-Thread:


I can't find any documentation on the Atto, what are the expected transfer speeds on that 50 pin internal connector? Asking for a friend (aka I may have found one locally).

Any idea? @trag ? @ArmorAlley ?

Pretty sure the Atto is 10MB/s on the narrow connector and 20MB/s on the two Wide connectors.

SEIV uses the Qlogic ISP1000 chip and that's what it supports. The 1000U supports UltraSCSI, but I'm looking at an SEIV right now and it has the 1000, not the 1000U. Bit of luck, I happened to have the box down from the attic that has my SEIV in it.

IMG_0386[1].JPG

BTW, if you could find those XC3030As and the ISP1000 I don't see anything on that board that would make reproducing it difficult.

Regarding the photo and discussion from "Clarification of the Q950" thread:

That's a photo of a 9150 prototype. The earlier discussion was of the Q950. I'm not sure what information or idea you're trying to convey -- which is a request for clarification, not a criticism.

The 9150 does support Fast narrow SCSI (10 MB/s) on one of its two SCSI busses. As does the 8100. The 8100 and 9150 used the 53CF96 for their internal-only Fast SCSI bus.

When Apple introduced the PCI PowerMacs with exactly the same SCSI arrangement as the NuBus PowerMacs, they switched from the 53CF96 to the MESH chip. Which is what leads me to suspect that MESH may be nothing more than a licensed (or illicitly copied?) 53CF96.

If one is good with software, it might be interesting to dig the drivers for each (MESH, 53CF95) out of their respective ROMs (PCI PowerMac, NuBus PowerMac) and see how they differ, if at all. I guess the Linux-porting folks might have some insight.

The Q950 stuck with the 53C96, which limited it to regular 5 MB/s speeds.

Perhaps the point is that unless you get a Fast and Wide drive the SEIV isn't going to provide a lot of improvement over the Internal SCSI bus?

One of the most important things you can do for performance on these old machines is get a more modern SCSI hard drive -- well, more modern than when they were released.

While Fast & Wide SCSI interfaces (20 MB/s) were available in the early/mid '90s, hard drives could not deliver better than about 6 MB/s until some time past the mid 90s.

I had a small collection of ST32550 Seagate hard drives. These were the beginning of the Barracuda line and some of the first drives to spin at 7200 RPM. But in testing, I could never get better than 6MB/s out of them. Other drives were slower, but why did my ST32550W have a Fast & Wide interface if the drive platters couldn't even deliver 10MB/s, never mind 20 MB/s?

IMG_0389[1].JPG

I had an FWB Jackhammer in my Power 120 (PM8100 clone from PowerComputing) and a copy of RAID Tool Kit.

When I put four Fast & Wide (20 MB/s) ST32550W drives on the JackHammer in a striped RAID, I got about 8 MB/s.

A little experimenting and I found going beyond 2 drives really wasn't getting me any improvement.

But I left 2 drives on the JackHammer and put an ST32550N (Fast SCSI, 10 MB/s) on the Internal Fast bus and then included that in the RAID and that got me up to 10 MB/s. I think I also put one drive on the internal/external SCSI-2 (5 MB/s) bus and that got me up to 12 MB/s for the RAID.

I may be misremembering the details a little, (details were posted in the PowerWatch forums which are long gone) but the lessons were, hard drives of the day don't deliver data as fast as the electronic interface can move it. And the various inputs on the computer are bandwidth limited too.

It'd be interesting to retry those experiments with a SCSI drive from the late 2000s that can deliver ~30 - 60 MB/s and also with an SEIV instead of the JackHammer.

I stuck with JackHammer mainly, because IIRC, the JackHammer was compatible with the NewerTech G3 upgrades and the SEIV wasn't. Although I never did add a G3 to the Power120. I can't remember if Sonnet ever cracked compatibility with the SEIV for their G3 upgrades. Sonnet was usually far behind and less compatible than NewerTech. Screwy universe that they ended up being more successful in the long run.
 

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BadGoldEagle

Well-known member
Hi trag,

I'm not sure what information or idea you're trying to convey -- which is a request for clarification, not a criticism.
You are just far more knowledgable than me on those SCSI 53C9x chips and explained it quite well in the other thread so I didn't need to rephrase everything. The point of the quote was actually an indirect question and I should have phrased it differently:

The SCSI2SD v6 supports FAST10 (10MB/s) synchronous transfers, it can't AFAIK do better than that. And while the 53C96 found on the Quadra cannot fully take advantage of the v6 (5MB/s cap), I think the 53CF96 can? The ATTO/Jackhammer's capabilities far exceed what the SCSI2SDv6 has to offer, but if you only want to use a SCSI2SD (I understand that ArmorAlley has other plans), is the ATTO worth it on 53CF96-equipped Macs?

Also, perhaps I got things mixed up but the ATTO should still give you a performance increase when used in the Quadra, right? The theoretical transfer speeds are double if I'm not mistaken. Edit: Perhaps the 53C96 supports FAST10 synchronous transfers? Nope, only 5MB/s. And the Q1000 can apparently do asynchronous SCSI transfers up to 12 Mbytes/sec (reference: https://www.tvsat.com.pl/pdf/f/fas101.pdf, Section 3 page 32), thus making the SCSI2SDv6 a bottleneck. It should also reduce CPU overload, right?

BTW, if you could find those XC3030As and the ISP1000 I don't see anything on that board that would make reproducing it difficult.
That would be a nice project!

@ArmorAlley sorry for the slight thread hijack...
 
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Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Congratulations on this - these look like super fun machines.


The SCSI2SD v6 supports FAST10 (10MB/s) synchronous transfers, it can't AFAIK do better than that.

The interface has an option that implies it'll do 20MB/sec but I don't know what the conditions for that are, I'm presuming a fairly high end Mac and/or a third party scsi card that implemented whatever it's doing. I also don't know if the hardware can keep up with a full 20MB/sec but it can keep up with 10MB/sec if you update the firmware and put a good enough SD card in.

A few years ago we had a neat discussion that sort of morphed into "what are the best options for high end NuBus PPC Macs" and, if nothing else I've come away with the conclusion that it's probably the scsi2sd v6. No other modern solution is close in terms of maxing out a 10MB/sec bus, which joethezombie was able to do using a IIfx and a scsi card. I got to 7.5 and a friend I was coordinating got to 8.5.

To be honest in my experience the v6 is even reasonable in high end PCI PowerMacs. Mine's in an 8600/300 right now. I'll probably get another for my Power120 and I wouldn't be surprised if, long-term, my 7200 or 8500 ends up with one as well, just since I have more PCI PowerMacs than I really have access to SATA cards.
 

tattar8

Well-known member
I've been looking for one of these for years, nice!

If you don't mind, could you post some high-resolution photos of the terminator board in the PDS slot?
 

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
I've been looking for one of these for years, nice!

If you don't mind, could you post some high-resolution photos of the terminator board in the PDS slot?
I will, but it will be a while yet. I'm re-organising my computer room. I have put up new shelves and once I have cleared away the stacks of stuff on the floor, I will happily oblige. I imagine that I will be in a position to do it next weekend and I will see how it goes.
 
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