non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Wed May 26 17:15:54 1999

OMTI (SMS) and ADAPTEC made quite a few of these SCSI-HOST to MFM or RLL
devices. It seems to me that NOVELL capitalized on this proliferation of
these bridge controllers as well, providing a configuration utility for use
with their SCSI board. I don't know how well they worked, but I imagine
they had "little" problems with them as did nearly everyone else.

Has anyone ever used a SCSI-hosted bride controller of this sort with
essentially no problems at all? If so, I'd surely like to know which one
and how it was implemented.

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 3:58 PM
Subject: non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next
frontier)


>ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
>> Most later workstations had SCSI interfaces for the hard disk (even if
>> they then broke that by insisting on an ST506 drive on the other side of
>> a SCSI->ST506 interface, as ICL and Torch both did). Some older
>
>Sun did this too. It wasn't 'til SunOS 4.0 that the SCSI-disk driver
>would actually talk to SCSI disks. Before that, it wanted to talk to
>an Adaptec ACB4000 or an Emulex MD21 (for ESDI disks).
>
>I think I remember reading somewhere that this was done because the
>SCSI-to-whatever interface had the intelligence for bad-block
>remapping. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that the cost of the
>drives had something to do with it; I remember Amiga folks scheming to
>use ACB4000 boards with their SCSI interfaces because it was cheaper
>than buying a SCSI disk, and I've opened a few Mac SCSI hard disk
>boxes to find the same sort of thing inside.
>
>-Frank McConnell
>
Received on Wed May 26 1999 - 17:15:54 BST