9 Oct
2011
9 Oct
'11
12:21 p.m.
Hmm, by what definition did they "first make the
leap to SCSI"? Are you
comparing just against an IBM-compatible PC, or do you maybe mean "first
with on-board SCSI"? Or maybe "first with a machine costing less than
$xxxx"?
I'm just surprised, because there seemed to be a *lot* of systems that were
(or could be made so, if not out of the box) SCSI-capable during the 80s.
I would be very suprised if the Mac+ was the first computer to have a
SCSI interface. The Mac+ uses a stnadard single-chip SCSI cotnroller
(5380 IIRC), which was not designed to go into the Mac, or even to go
into a 68000 machine. It's a standard chip, off the shelf.
My experience of designs of that period suggests that often the first
machines to use a particular interface implemented it using TTL, small
progamamble devices (PALs), est. The single-chip implementation came
later, when the IC manufacutrer realised thaere was going to be a market
for such an interface chip.
-tony