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Topic |
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SiliconValleyPirate
Junior Member
United Kingdom
273 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 03:08:42
I'm fielding questions about the ACARD SCSIDE Adapters and their use in 68k Macs. I am currently using one in my 840av and have experience with installing, updating firmware and Drive Setup compatibility.Fire away... I'll try my best to answer any queries --
Mark Benson Visit FlatPackMacs Online
http://fpm.gotdns.com We have feets  |
cinemafia
Guerrilla Recon Leader
USA
2965 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 08:14:32
Where in the heck do I find one?  666th poster and 666th thread-creator
Mod of the Mac II series Forums
Total 68K Macs liberated: 7
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Trash80toG-4
NIGHT STALKER
USA
2899 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 08:36:33
quote:
Where in the heck do I find one?
http://www.microlandusa.com/microland/product_detail.asp?non=1&p%5Fid=AEC7720UMjt  ™ ps: more direct links to the ACARD bridges in MLA discussion: gigs+gigs+gigs+gigs4little$ toys 2
Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 10 Apr 2002 08:47:51
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FireWire is fast
General, 4 star
USA
1559 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 09:13:30
Seventy dollars...a bit pricey for somebody sticking a sub-20gig HD into a SCSI Mac just for fun...--------------------
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cinemafia
Guerrilla Recon Leader
USA
2965 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 09:27:11
Yeah, I think I'll stick with FWB JackHammers or ATTO SE IV's!!  666th poster and 666th thread-creator
Mod of the Mac II series Forums
Total 68K Macs liberated: 7
Regular Disappear! |
Trash80toG-4
NIGHT STALKER
USA
2899 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 11:16:48
quote:
Seventy dollars...a bit pricey for somebody sticking a sub-20gig HD into a SCSI Mac just for fun...
agreed, for a dinky drive like that, but for a solution that's compatable with (+ 50 pin adapter) everything from a 512ke to the latest SCSI card equipped twin-gig screamer, it's not a bad idea at all. i got an 80 gig 5400rpm Western Digital for $150 so a $70 adapter can make a lot more sense than you're imagining. it just takes a leap of faith and a little imagination to justify that kind of capacity/cost/flexibility ratio. sticking one in a IIfx as a 10baseT Hub/80 gig network server makes sense to me even if a SCSI adapted removable IDE tray system wasn't what i was planning.jt ™
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Trash80toG-4
NIGHT STALKER
USA
2899 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 11:26:50
quote:
Fire away... I'll try my best to answer any queries
thanks for joining in, svp!What kind of performance hit do you think there would be on something like my G-4/466 on fast narrow bus and was any performance hit, due to translation overhead, even noticeable at all on your 840AV's atandard buses? jt ™
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maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2002 : 22:41:41
Also, can you set up a slave drive on the IDE bus, or only a master? If you could get one, put it in a WGS 95, with a couple of 80 giggers, you could have a really neat server.-------------------------- Pizzabox LCs RULE!!!!!!! Warrior maclover5
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
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SiliconValleyPirate
Junior Member
United Kingdom
273 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2002 : 16:20:34
quote:
Seventy dollars...a bit pricey for somebody sticking a sub-20gig HD into a SCSI Mac just for fun...
I used it on a 40GB drive I had already had in a PC for 8 months so it wasn't too expensive either way. When people are selling 40GB ATA-100 drives for $75 whose complaining? I think the last 40GB UW160 SCSI drive I saw was about £400 (US$476 without sales tax) so I'm still with the ACARD Bridge quote:
What kind of performance hit do you think there would be on something like my G-4/466 on fast narrow bus and was any performance hit, due to translation overhead, even noticeable at all on your 840AV's atandard buses?
It's faster than the standard drives on an 840av by virtue of the fact the drive is much newer and the ACARD adapter works at ATA-100 speed. Add that to the fact I have a 7200rpm driver and it means fast transfers. I wish I'd bought the UW version, it claims to clock 20MB/s on the right card (like a Jackhammer). Mine clocks 5.1MB/s but it's on a default SCSI-2 internal bus so it's not all that fast to start with, I believe my 50-pin will notch up 10MB/s on the right interface.
The translation overhead is minimal, IDE and SCSI, for all their differences, are actually quite similar so the decoding is fairly effortless. The ACARD chip is RISC as well which helps a lot.
It's not really worth doing in a G4 is if has ATA-66 or better, I really don't think the speed would be much different. quote:
Also, can you set up a slave drive on the IDE bus, or only a master? If you could get one, put it in a WGS 95, with a couple of 80 giggers, you could have a really neat server.
Only one drive is allowed per adapter as it has it's own descreat SCSI ID number so I don't think it can handle more than one drive for comapatibility reasons. One thing I'd like to say is that you should request the 68k Bridge Utility for BIOS flashing from ACARD a few days *before* you buy the bridge. This is required to flash the BIOS to a version that allows the drive to show up in Drive Setup or HD SC Setup. The BIOS itself is downloadable from the ACARD website with the Power Macintosh updater (says it requires 8.5 or later but I'm going to try it in 8.1 when I get my 7300/200 before I put 9.1 on it). No amount of hacking I did in ResEdit on the Drive Setup app in 8.1 worked to get it recognised before the flash but it was 100% OK after. Good 1st round, any more questions? --
Mark Benson Visit FlatPackMacs Online
http://fpm.gotdns.com We have feets |
ACARD SCSIDE Bridge adapters
68k of the Week: kastegir's PowerBook 180.