User avatar
JoeUser
Dallas, TX

Posted Thu Jun 24, 2021 10:41 am

First off, my goal is to enable SCSI for my other non-Parciero equipped A1000 (I have two A1000's). Since Starboard II adapters are rare and hard to find, I was contemplating using more available A500 expansion products to attempt this. I'm essentially looking to enable the use of an external SCSI hard drive that I possess, but not looking to boot from it; only for storage (getting tired of dealing with mountains of floppies).

One alternative is to use a Zorro II expansion bus adapter (to enable the use of a Zorro II SCSI board, of which I have plenty). One adapter that I've found that's pretty nifty is the open-sourced design from Matthius Heinrich. An example of an assembled board is here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/393408589975.

Yes, I know that whatever SCSI card is used in the Zorro II slot will essentially be backwards facing (with the rear of the card facing you, as the expansion adapter would essentially be rotated backwards from how it would be mounted in an A500). That doesn't really bother me, initially, but I would find a way to enclose the entire setup, eventually (another future project).

Has anyone attempted this with an A1000? I couldn't find any posts here that mention this kind of setup, but if I have overlooked a thread that someone knows about please direct me to it.

What do y'all think? Is this idea worth pursuing? Or, should I just forget about it, and relegate the external drive for use with one of the other non-A1000 machines?

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Jun 24, 2021 10:57 am

I've never personally tried that before. Interesting idea...

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:36 am

Yes, it works.

You need to be aware, though, that it still is not a full Zorro-II-slot.

Cards like the VarIO might work. Complicated things like an SCSI/Memeory expansion or a Bridgeboard might not.

Some signals are missing.

Zorro II is 100-pin, the A500/1000 expansion port is 86 Pin.

User avatar
JoeUser
Dallas, TX

Posted Sun Jun 27, 2021 7:25 pm

Good to know, thanks!

Well, since my reason for choosing that route was for SCSI access, then it's a dead end, apparently.

Well, back to the hunt for the elusive Starboard 2...

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:33 pm

Hi,

SCSI cards may work. My point was that you can not be 100% sure upfront.

As a rule of thumb, check if you find a setup of an A500 with the respective card. There are quite a lot of systems after the Checkmate 1500 was released. You find a lot of them on EAB and A1k. Maybe also other sites with a showroom.

The Buddha IDE had an version made specifically for the A500 & Phoenix. Some older Zorro cards seem to be more tolerant, such as the AT508 redesign by Matze (Matthias Heinrich).

TL;DR - YMMV ;)





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