18 Mar
2019
18 Mar
'19
7:22 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 7:16 PM Charles Dickman via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old
computers? It looks to be
SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this
list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get.
Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not
seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a
supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the
V6 available.
It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without
following the GPL.
V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware
supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was
after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be
consistent with the era.
Chuck
I've been using the V5 boards in a variety of systems for a few years now
-- VAX (micro-and-otherwise), PDP-11 (via the usual Emulex and CMD
controllers), Sun-2 and Sun-3 workstations, HP/Apollo 400 systems, a
Symbolics XL1200, various old Macintosh systems and probably some other
things I've forgotten. At LCM+L we're using them in our VAX-11/785 and
730, and we're using a V6 in our 7000-640. I've had very few issues and
the developer has been very responsive to bug reports (though I'll admit
it's been a couple of years since I've had to report one).
The V5 is plenty fast for most vintage gear, I don't think they come close
to hitting the max throughput. That's what I'd recommend for the systems
you're talking about.
- Josh