On Apr 18, 4:51, Sellam Ismail wrote:
> Oops, sorry. I misread that.
I'll let you off :-) I do that all the time...
> > looks like it's just boot/driver code, so I think there must be some
other
> > way to format the (winchester) drive.
>
> You are correct. Generally the Xebec interfaces were used with the Sider
> hard drives (at least those are the only drives I've ever seen them
> used with) and they came with utilities on floppies for partitioning and
> formatting the drive.
I've seen Xebecs with all sorts of drives (but not on Apples). But unlike
Adaptec SCSI copntrollers, the Xebec ones never stored the drive geometry
on the drive, so you had to put it in a file to be read by your code (or
hardwire it into your code, which is a bit limiting). I remember writing a
pile of 6502 code for a BBC Micro to handle that.
> I don't think this is SASI since the actual hard drive is a ST-225 or
> equivalent. More like MFM.
Well, sure, the drive would be MFM (or whatever the particular Xebec
controller was intended for). I don't have the Xebec controller that came
with this particular Apple interface; I was just hoping I could use this
Apple interface with one of the spare Xebecs I have in the junk box.
> I don't think I have the pinout, but then my
> Sider manuals are stored away somewhere, and I don't know that they would
> necessarily have any technical info for the Xebec card.
>
> Are you wanting to use it to hook a hard drive up to your Apple ][?
Yes. I should have been clearer; I have the Apple-to-Xebec interface, and
a couple of Xebec SASI controllers from elsewhere, and a few MFM drives.
What I need is the pinout of the 26-pin connector on the Apple-to-Xebec
interface, so I can figure out if my Xebex will connect to it. I wonder if
an Adaptec ACB4000 would work? I've got a couple of those, too.
Was there a standard pinout on Apple SCSI/SASI boards? Perhaps it's the
same as the Mac 25-pin SCSI?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Sun Apr 18 1999 - 08:57:10 BST