Today I was informed that there’s a new version of the BlueSCSI firmware. I saw it has CD emulation. What would that do for me? I have a Macintosh Performa 450. The floppy drive is broken. I can’t get my BlueSCSI to work because I can’t get install disk 1 in to click format on my hard drive. Would this new BlueSCSI update let me push command + C on startup or whatever it is to boot up from the CD version of 7.5 that is on the SD card? If not, any other ideas on how to boot up on a BlueSCSI without a working floppy drive?
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BlueSCSI updates
- Thread starter Andrew18489
- Start date
ive booted my bluescsi directly off a couple different bootable iso Mac installers. there's a lot of badly ripped boot cd's floating around that don't have the correct boot blocks meaning they won't directly boot. however im pretty sure somewhere on the bluescsi wiki is a page that lists and gives download links to known bootable Mac OS install CD's.
as for holding down 'C' and having the Mac boot from the cd iso, I couldn't get that to work for me but if I hold Command-Option-Shift-Delete-#, with # being a scsci id for example if the iso is setup as scsi id 5 I would hold Command-Option-Shift-Delete-5 and it will boot up from the cd installer.
while I haven't tried it, perhaps if the scsi id is set to 3, just as all internal Mac SCSI CD-ROM drives are then maybe holding 'C' will work...
as for holding down 'C' and having the Mac boot from the cd iso, I couldn't get that to work for me but if I hold Command-Option-Shift-Delete-#, with # being a scsci id for example if the iso is setup as scsi id 5 I would hold Command-Option-Shift-Delete-5 and it will boot up from the cd installer.
while I haven't tried it, perhaps if the scsi id is set to 3, just as all internal Mac SCSI CD-ROM drives are then maybe holding 'C' will work...
I didn’t know that start up command until now. I’ve had some known good .HDA images, even some other users made me that were never working. Does that command option shift delete # work for my hard drive images too on my BlueSCSI? Any other ideas why those wouldn’t boot?
usually holding C should boot a CD-ROM drive attached to I think if I remember correctly SCSI ID3. however the command I mentioned in my last post will just force the Mac to look for a bootable device on the SCSI ID you specify ( ID 5 in my example). it doesn't matter to the Mac if the device is a CD-ROM drive, HDD, tape drive, zip/jaz drive or any other drive. it just has to have the valid boot blocks to let the Macintosh ROM do its thing and boot the system OS.
here's a good easy to read link with all the classic startup commands used right upto pre-intel (EFI) era. a few commands are Open Firmware specific but the majority work across the board on Classic Macs
here's a good easy to read link with all the classic startup commands used right upto pre-intel (EFI) era. a few commands are Open Firmware specific but the majority work across the board on Classic Macs
Do you have a link to a CD that works for OS 7.5 or earlier?
I used this one with my MacSE using ZuluSCSI, which is compatible with BlueSCSI. I bet it would work with any 680x0 Mac such as yours. I renamed the long toast filename to CD3.toast and another time CD6.iso and it worked either way. My Mac found it without pressing any startup keys, likely because it was the only thing it found that was bootable. There was a long pause early in the boot so let it sit for awhile before giving up. I bet it took 3mins to finish booting but you may find it's faster on your system.
https://archive.org/details/Macinto...Apple_Computer_U96073-016A_Version_1.0_CD_199
If it doesn't work, maybe a BlueSCSI user can tell you the over complicated filename scheme for that system. I had a guy tell me you have to specify LUN and sector size in your filename. Just CD or HD at the beginning and SCSI ID before the period is good to go on Zulu.
https://archive.org/details/Macinto...Apple_Computer_U96073-016A_Version_1.0_CD_199
If it doesn't work, maybe a BlueSCSI user can tell you the over complicated filename scheme for that system. I had a guy tell me you have to specify LUN and sector size in your filename. Just CD or HD at the beginning and SCSI ID before the period is good to go on Zulu.
When you say 3 minutes do you mean on the blinking floppy disk screen?
It's a fuzzy memory but I think maybe 5-10 seconds of flashing floppy icon then I got a graphic indicating it was loading the CD but that didn't change for quite a long time. Maybe 3 minutes before seeing the desktop.
you really shouldn't need to mess around with naming files with LUN ID's as I don't think the Macintosh OS really even know anything about dealing with LUN addresses (someone correct me if I'm wrong here), the LUN feature is really just a hold over form the original Zitto firmware for the sharp X68000 computer that the bluscsi is based on. Nor should you need to specify the sector size unless you are doing something very uncommon. 512kb sectors are pretty much always used as its the best speed/perfomance/file size ratio for the older systems. I'm not actually sure if the bluescsi supports say 1k or 4k sectors but its certainly not something id recommend messing around with regardless plus if would likely have a negative effect on the R/W performance.
Look personally I don't even use the bluescsi device myself, I tried it out along time ago, but found the performance was kinda average in about in the middle in terms of transfer speeds when compare to other solutions. but more importantly the Bluescsi isn't electrically designed well. I ended up making a better carrier board for the bluebell with actual line drivers and protection etc but I never bothered to get the PCB's made due to the performance not being as good as my other scsi HD emu devices.
I'm not sure what electronic engineering skills Eric (the guy who makes the bluescsi) has and maybe his day to day life/job keeps him very busy but I've tried to mention to him in the past some of the issues and simple fixes he could implement and I also know other people have contacted him about these things too.
Honestly that was over a year ago now and I'm not even sure he really comes on the forum here much if at all these days. Im just speculating here but I get the impression that he didn't like feedback he got and there was a little hostility towards him by people due to the responses he gave.
I only mention this because as @Daniël mentioned there may be better resources out there to get more info about the bluescsi and how to use it/set it up etc. I'm always happy to offer what advice I can to help out but as like I mentioned I just don't use the bluescsi devices at all these days.
Look personally I don't even use the bluescsi device myself, I tried it out along time ago, but found the performance was kinda average in about in the middle in terms of transfer speeds when compare to other solutions. but more importantly the Bluescsi isn't electrically designed well. I ended up making a better carrier board for the bluebell with actual line drivers and protection etc but I never bothered to get the PCB's made due to the performance not being as good as my other scsi HD emu devices.
I'm not sure what electronic engineering skills Eric (the guy who makes the bluescsi) has and maybe his day to day life/job keeps him very busy but I've tried to mention to him in the past some of the issues and simple fixes he could implement and I also know other people have contacted him about these things too.
Honestly that was over a year ago now and I'm not even sure he really comes on the forum here much if at all these days. Im just speculating here but I get the impression that he didn't like feedback he got and there was a little hostility towards him by people due to the responses he gave.
I only mention this because as @Daniël mentioned there may be better resources out there to get more info about the bluescsi and how to use it/set it up etc. I'm always happy to offer what advice I can to help out but as like I mentioned I just don't use the bluescsi devices at all these days.
Why don’t you try one of these images ?
macintoshgarden.org
RaSCSI - Macintosh Garden
Bootstrap drives to help you get started with the RaSCSI device. Select a compatible OS for your device and the bootstrap drive. The bootstrap drive contains many essential utilities for you to get started with your vintage mac. Utilities to format SCSI drives, expand files, and mount disks.
Silly question how do i know if my BlueSCSI needs to be terminated? It’s the only thing plugged in at the moment
termination needs two be applied on the last device on the bus. so since you have no other devices then you need to use termination
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