Viking SCSI controller secrets?

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Fri Jun 29 12:54:51 2001

At 10:00 AM 6/29/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >Is there some secret lore about Viking SCSI controllers that I need to get
> >them to work?
>
>The first thing you'll want to do is look here
>ftp://zane.brouhaha.com/pub/dan/viking_scsi/

I actually have a copy of the manual.

>OK, I'm getting really suspicious here after having read this whole thing.
>I take it that the Aspire box came with the Viking board? What exactly
>does the firmware say? BTW, the latest version of Viking Firmware I've
>seen is V3.7, however, it sounds like you've might have Alphatronix
>Firmware.

Actually I've got *three* two with Alphatronix firmware and badged "Aspire"
and one from TDS and is a real honest to goodness QDT. One of the Aspire
ones came with an Aspire dual MO drive system and it works fine in that role.

>I'm more than a little confused by the cable question. You should have a
>50-pin cable going from the Viking board, to the RS232 block, and from it
>you should have another 50-pin cable going to any drives.

The aspire MO drive box has a SCSI IN, that then goes to a board that has
an RS232 connector (marked as such) and the one to the MO drives. For the
expansion box test I've been connecting them straight to the QDT board. The
Viking manual indicates the RS232 thingy is "optional" so I figured it
would work either way.

>Also, what SCSI ID's are the RZ55's at? Make sure they're between 0-3.

0 and 1.

>One word of warning, my VAXen don't rate Vikings, they're reserved for my
>PDP-11's :^) So I've never tried using a Viking with a VAXen. Although
>both my PDP-11/44 and PDP-11/73 use them (in the case of the /44 with
>RZ55's).

The Aspire box was running on a MVIII (in a tempest case!)

New questions:
         Is the RS232 breakout cable required? If so can I create one?
         Where can I get a later firmware image?

--Chuck
Received on Fri Jun 29 2001 - 12:54:51 BST

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