Re: Question about Sun Rem SCSI card

I've spent some time today playing with a SCSI zip drive on a Lisa with moderate success.

I was guided by the info here:

  <http://www.vintagemacworld.com/pluszip.html>

Results:

If I boot MW+II 2.5.0 without a zip disk inserted, then insert and format the zip disk with Lido 7.56, I can mount it and use it as a volume (even with no zip extension), however it won't boot from it. Further, it usually hangs if there is a zip disk inserted when I try to boot from another disk. This was with an XLerator with 4MB RAM and MW+II 2.5.0.

Going on the assumption that the driver on the disk was the problem, I tried another SCSI driver (which happened to be PCPC "SCSITools v2.0u", the first one I found), and this one seemed to work ok. That is, after loading MW+1.0.18 from a floppy drive, the zip disk would then boot System 6.0.2. I retried this with the XLerator off and only 1MB of RAM, and it still booted ok.

I also tried loading MW+ via QuickBoot, but did not get it to work with Lido 7.56 or SCSITools v2.0u. With the former, it crashed with error 49 before the MW+Loader was found, with the latter it hung looking for the loader. I speculate that formatting differently (not just installing a different driver) using different software might make the zip drive work with QuickBoot (since the partition arrangement for driver/data differs by the brand of formatter).

>> - LocalTalk (which is what I typically use... no moving parts!)
>
>However, since all of my old Macs are gone and I am running a newer Mac
>with OS10.4.11, it looks like additional hardware such as a LocalTalk to
>Ethernet adaptor would be needed.

I'm confident you will need more than that... AFAICT there have been a few major changes to the AppleFilingProtocol (which is used for file sharing).

  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol>

I may be imagining some of the details, but it seem that the AFP version used for System 6.0.x is compatible with up to ~ MacOS 9. The version used for MacOS 8/9 is compatible up to MacOS X 10.3.9. AFP in MacOS X 10.4 requires TCP/IP (ie. ethernet), but I don't know how far back it will communicate.

Further: sometimes you can mount an old AFP volume on a newer machine more easily than in the other direction... the newer versions sometimes will not allow a guest to connect using an older insecure authentication mechanism.

As a result, I find I need to maintain an medium-old system ~ MacOS 9 to move stuff between current operating systems and the really old ones.

If you are serious about getting the Lisa working, I suggest you pick up an older Mac with ethernet, a printer port, and a floppy drive... probably free if you look hard enough.

HTH, James

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