26 Nov
2007
26 Nov
'07
6:51 p.m.
so what's a SASI board good for?
I found and took pictures of my Acculogic sIDE-1/16
board (XT/IDE) if anyone would like to take a look.
Besides 1 PAL chip, all standard TTL. Would be nice to
get these things cloned.
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7:37 p.m.
ah so in other words they're useless. I had thought it
was kind of sort of to be used with an mfm drive. Ah
well.
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Chris M wrote:
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so what's a SASI board good for?
This is going to soubnd flippant, . . .
it's for hooking up an SASI drive.
(Shugart Associates System Interface)?
(one of the predecessors to SCSI)
7:49 p.m.
On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Chris M wrote:
ah so in other words they're useless. I had
thought it
was kind of sort of to be used with an mfm drive. Ah
well.
Well,
there were some adapter/controller boards that permitted connecting an MFM
drive to an SASI board. (similar to the OMTI boards for hanging MFM on
SCSI)
It MIGHT be close enough to SCSI to be possible to modify a SCSI drive
into an SASI one.
IF you discard it, then next week, you will find an SASI drive with no
controller board.
7:55 p.m.
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Mon, 26 Nov 2007, Chris M wrote:
No I won't. Besides I'd need a steam shovel to
discard of the ones I got.
What about Xebec? They made a *similar* z80 based
controller. I had the opportunity to own several
hundred of those also, but waffled. And turns out I
picked up a Mindset hard drive (external) that uses
that same controller. Which interface was that likely?
Best guess...
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ah so in other words they're useless. I had
thought it
was kind of sort of to be used with an mfm drive.
Ah
well.
Well,
there were some adapter/controller boards that
permitted connecting an MFM
drive to an SASI board. (similar to the OMTI boards
for hanging MFM on
SCSI)
It MIGHT be close enough to SCSI to be possible to
modify a SCSI drive
into an SASI one.
IF you discard it, then next week, you will find an
SASI drive with no
controller board. 
8:17 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 04:49:26PM -0800, Fred Cisin wrote:
Well,
there were some adapter/controller boards that permitted connecting an MFM
drive to an SASI board. (similar to the OMTI boards for hanging MFM on
SCSI)
There is one of those in the CBM 9060 and CBM 9090 drives.
It MIGHT be close enough to SCSI to be possible to
modify a SCSI drive
into an SASI one.
I've often mused about investigating the 90x0 firmware to see if it's
possible/reasonable to make the "DOS Board" speak SCSI rather than SASI,
but that's one of those long-term projects that just hasn't come up in
the queue yet.
IF you discard it, then next week, you will find an
SASI drive with no
controller board.
That is the way of things.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 27-Nov-2007 at 01:10 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.8 F (-32.1 C) Windchill -48.6 F (-44.8 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 9.3 kts Grid 3 Barometer 681.5 mb (10572 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
8:59 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 05:54:21PM -0800, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
As long as the PC can handle 256-byte sectors...
The base drive in a CBM 90x0 is either a Tandon TM602S (9060/5MB) or
a Tandom TM603S (9090/7.5MB) - 4 heads vs 6 heads, MFM encoding,
32 sectors of 256 bytes per track.
But the CBM 90x0 "DOS board" _does_ speak SASI to a SASI<->ST506 board
that's also in there. The geometry is fixed in ROM, though there have
been intrepid souls in the past few years who have dared to fiddle the
geometry table to get up to the filesystem max of 16MB per disk.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 27-Nov-2007 at 01:50 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -26.1 F (-32.3 C) Windchill -50.0 F (-45.6 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 10.1 kts Grid 0 Barometer 681.4 mb (10575 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
There is one of those in the CBM 9060 and CBM
9090 drives.
So, . . .
an IBM PC SASI board would let you cable a CBM 90x0 drive to a PC?
THAT seems like a good use. 
27 Nov
27 Nov
9:59 a.m.
New subject: SASI / SCSI bridge board availability (was: Re: SASI and XT/IDE info)
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 05:54:21PM -0800, Fred Cisin
wrote:
Out of interest, how obtainable are the SASI/SCSI <==> ST412 bridge boards
(from the likes of OMTI / Adaptec / Xebec / Emulex)?
I've got a pile I was going to ship over from the UK at some point as spares
(various systems that I have use them) - but if they're still really easy to
get then I guess I won't bother[1] and will just acquire a few within the US
as it'll likely be cheaper.
[1] The Xebec ones at least tended to have vendor-specific ROMs I think, so
I'll have to make sure I have a working copy of the ROMs in my UK-side ones.
cheers
Jules
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
As long as the PC can handle 256-byte sectors... There is one of those in the CBM 9060 and CBM
9090 drives.
So, . . .
an IBM PC SASI board would let you cable a CBM 90x0 drive to a PC?
THAT seems like a good use. 
11:22 a.m.
New subject: SASI / SCSI bridge board availability (was: Re: SASI and XT/IDE info)
On Nov 27, 2007, at 9:59 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Out of interest, how obtainable are the SASI/SCSI
<==> ST412 bridge
boards (from the likes of OMTI / Adaptec / Xebec / Emulex)?
I've got a pile I was going to ship over from the UK at some point
as spares (various systems that I have use them) - but if they're
still really easy to get then I guess I won't bother[1] and will
just acquire a few within the US as it'll likely be cheaper.
[1] The Xebec ones at least tended to have vendor-specific ROMs I
think, so I'll have to make sure I have a working copy of the ROMs
in my UK-side ones.
The Emulex MD21 and Adaptec ACB4000, both very nice boards used on
earlier Sun systems, used to be quite common but seem to have dried
up in recent years...I've not seen one in the wild for quite a while.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
7:14 p.m.
New subject: SASI / SCSI bridge board availability (was: Re: SASI and XT/IDE info)
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Out of interest, how obtainable are the SASI/SCSI
<==> ST412 bridge boards
(from the likes of OMTI / Adaptec / Xebec / Emulex)?
I've got a pile I was going to ship over from the UK
at some point as spares
(various systems that I have use them) - but if
they're still really easy to
get then I guess I won't bother[1] and will just
acquire a few within the US
as it'll likely be cheaper.
[1] The Xebec ones at least tended to have
vendor-specific ROMs I think, so
I'll have to make sure I have a working copy of the
ROMs in my UK-side ones.
I was going to ask what a IBM PC SASI board was, or
rather where would you find one, but then I remembered
a XEBEC board sitting at the bottom of an old Tecmar
expansion chassis I have (similar to the IBM 51??). Is
that a SASI board? Best guess?
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On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 05:54:21PM -0800, Fred
Cisin wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> There is one of those in the CBM 9060 and CBM
9090 drives.
> So, . . .
> an IBM PC SASI board would let you cable a CBM
90x0 drive to a PC?
THAT
seems like a good use.
As long as the PC can handle 256-byte sectors... 
12:09 p.m.
On Monday 26 November 2007 20:17, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I've often mused about investigating the 90x0
firmware to see if it's
possible/reasonable to make the "DOS Board" speak SCSI rather than SASI,
but that's one of those long-term projects that just hasn't come up in
the queue yet.
How much of a difference is there between the two, really?
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
12:52 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Monday 26 November 2007 20:17, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I think there was an extra protocol phase added for SCSI, plus parity support
crept in at some point, as did a few extra commands (e.g. 'basic' stuff like
Inquiry). I don't think there's a clear definition between SCSI and SASI
though, as some early devices calling themselves SCSI are pretty broken by
modern definitions of the standard.
From scratch, it'd be possible to make a dual-purpose SCSI/SASI interface I
think - but taking someone else's SASI interface and hacking on the extra
logic necessary for SCSI might be more tricky.
Chris - you probably have something quite unique there. Whilst things calling
themselves SASI interfaces are common in old 8-bitters, this is the first I've
heard of one for the PC...
cheers
Jules
I've often mused about investigating the 90x0
firmware to see if it's
possible/reasonable to make the "DOS Board" speak SCSI rather than SASI,
but that's one of those long-term projects that just hasn't come up in
the queue yet.
How much of a difference is there between the two, really? 
1:08 p.m.
On 27 Nov 2007 at 11:52, Jules Richardson wrote:
Chris - you probably have something quite unique
there. Whilst things calling
themselves SASI interfaces are common in old 8-bitters, this is the first I've
heard of one for the PC...
The Ampex Megastore for the 5150 interfaced to both a hard disk and a
tape drive (both in an external cabinet).
Cheers,
Chuck
7:21 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
The Ampex Megastore for the 5150 interfaced to both
a hard disk and a
tape drive (both in an external cabinet).
Adaptec or Xebec controller?
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2:59 p.m.
On Tuesday 27 November 2007 12:52, Jules Richardson wrote:
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Mostly I was thinking about the fact that my BigBoard II has a SASI port on
it, and how I have this whole *pile* of "small" SCSI drives (2G mostly) and
how much room that'd be on one of those.
All I'd need is to add an EPROM with some code in it to boot the thing, and I
could do just about anything I wanted to from there. Get the right CRC in
there and the BBII rom hands control off to it automatically... :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
On Monday 26 November 2007 20:17, Ethan Dicks
wrote:
I think there was an extra protocol phase added for SCSI, plus parity
support crept in at some point, as did a few extra commands (e.g. 'basic'
stuff like Inquiry). I don't think there's a clear definition between SCSI
and SASI though, as some early devices calling themselves SCSI are pretty
broken by modern definitions of the standard.
From scratch, it'd be possible to make a dual-purpose SCSI/SASI interface
I think - but taking someone else's SASI interface and hacking on the extra
logic necessary for SCSI might be more tricky. I've often mused about investigating the 90x0
firmware to see if it's
possible/reasonable to make the "DOS Board" speak SCSI rather than SASI,
but that's one of those long-term projects that just hasn't come up in
the queue yet.
How much of a difference is there between the two, really?
7:20 p.m.
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Chris - you probably have something quite unique
there. Whilst things calling
themselves SASI interfaces are common in old
8-bitters, this is the first I've
heard of one for the PC...
They're not specific to anything AFAIK. They're not
ISA cards if that's what you were led to believe.
They're the same size as a floppy, or old klunker of a
hard drive (similar to an Ampro Little Board).
The guy who gave them to me supposedly had a drawing
for an interface that would allow *any* computer with
a *parallel* connection to utilize these boards. Kelly
Leavitt (who sailed off the end of the earth
apparently, haven't seen him around) should know a bit
more about these things. I could e-mail Roy Soltoff
about the schematics, but I doubt he held onto them.
I wish I would have grabbed a box of the z80 based
XEBEC boards when I was down there. They're common in
older equipment.
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cclist＠sydex.com -
chrism3667＠yahoo.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ethan.dicks＠usap.gov -
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