Uncreative Labs

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Looks like you've done well. In that auction, the two cards at the top with the 16-bit interfaces will not work in 8-bit systems for the obvious reason that they're 16-bit. The two on the bottom will work in an 8-bit system, though the one on the lower left (DTC) certainly won't be able to boot from a harddrive as it doesn't have a PROM on the card. However, the one on the bottom left by Future Domain has a boot ROM. That is a TMC-850M, the same as the one I bought. That's the best 8-bit card you can get for an XT. ROM version 8.2 was the best one. If it's 8.4 or 8.5 it won't boot on an XT though. I think lower ROM versions are missing larger drive support. Though, chances are it's a V8.2. The drivers for the Future Domain were updated until about 1997 so they support a wide variety of devices.

Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Nottingham, England

Thanks for the info Smile

I might as well bid on it then, as I imagine it will go for very little, and it could be quite a while before I get another chance Razz

I wonder if it'll be possible to get this working with it:

It's scsi box i got cheap of ebay. Unfortunately, I didn't realise until I got it, that it's limited to 40MB/s Sad

(It's got U160 drives in it - also cheap of ebay)

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I wouldn't count on it going as cheap as you suspect. I've been getting seriously outbid on vintage components lately. As for it working with this SCSI box of yours...don't count on it recognising drive space beyond 1GB.

Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Nottingham, England

Hmmm, guess I'll just have to wait and see. If it's going to be expensive, I probably won't bother.
And as for it working with that box, I'd be happy if it could just see a 100mb's worth of a drive Razz

(PC's currently got a 20mb hardcard)

Guest

Anonymous101 wrote:

I'd be happy if it could just see a 100mb's worth of a drive Razz

(PC's currently got a 20mb hardcard)

my TMC850 could drive a 2g SCSI HD

Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Nottingham, England

It ended up costing £3.99 (~$7). Bargin Smile

And it would seem to have V8.0 of the bios. Although I've still got to test it...

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I think you'll do just fine with the V8.0 BIOS. I am pretty sure it was a significant step forward in terms of disk drive support. Though, if you need a copy of the V8.2 ROM so you can burn yourself a newone, I can provide it for you. I think you're quite lucky. I've been scouring ebay for two years to find a good TMC-850M, and I am quite surprised to see so many spring up all of a sudden. Infact, about a month ago I saw some being sold NIB, however I didn't buy as the seller couldn't tell me the BIOS revision. I didn't want to get stuck with another V8.4 ROM. You know, I spent a long time looking for somebody with a dump of the V8.2, and it's quite ironic that about one week after somebody sent it to me, I found a real card. Buying vintage parts is starting to give me serious headaches.

Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 41 Location: Netherlands

Im gonna follow this discussion (and yes, anonymous coward- I'm at the VC forum too but you will have guessed that..)

Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 169 Location: behind you!

Anonymous101 wrote:

It ended up costing £3.99 (~$7). Bargin Smile

And it would seem to have V8.0 of the bios. Although I've still got to test it...

I have that same card. Love it. Not sure on my rom version though. I find it odd the external scsi port is "macintosh compatible" (mine has a sticker which says that).

Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Nottingham, England

Yeah, mines got that sticker on it too Confused

Anyway, good to know that v8.0 bios won't be a probelm.
However, when I installed this card and booted, I (after the usual wait) got the future bios come up. It did a search for scsi devices and found none (as none were connected Razz

), suggested checking cables+power, then hung. Is this right, or should it then go on to try booting off a floppy/hdd?

Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 169 Location: behind you!

Anonymous101 wrote:

Yeah, mines got that sticker on it too Confused

Anyway, good to know that v8.0 bios won't be a probelm.
However, when I installed this card and booted, I (after the usual wait) got the future bios come up. It did a search for scsi devices and found none (as none were connected Razz

), suggested checking cables+power, then hung. Is this right, or should it then go on to try booting off a floppy/hdd?

how did it "hung"? (ie. did you get any errors?)

BTW

another one on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/Future-Domain-Apple-Signal-ISA-SCSI-Card_W0QQitemZ5843913034QQcategoryZ31494QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

---EDIT---

Here is whats on the rom chip (I asked Very Happy

)
1994 950 V.840

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I've never tried booting one of the Future Domain cards without a drive attached, but I guess it doesn't really surprise me that it would hang if not properly terminated. Though it is likely the best one you can get for 8-bit ISA it is still not a really advanced card, so it's probably not smart enough to know what to do when there are no devices connected. When you do get around to testing an actual SCSI drive, be sure to keep in mind that Future Domain SCSI cards are a little goofy as they tend to check SCSI-IDs in reverse order...so if using multiple drives you should make sure you boot drive is set to ID6.

Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 169 Location: behind you!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I've never tried booting one of the Future Domain cards without a drive attached, but I guess it doesn't really surprise me that it would hang if not properly terminated. Though it is likely the best one you can get for 8-bit ISA it is still not a really advanced card, so it's probably not smart enough to know what to do when there are no devices connected. When you do get around to testing an actual SCSI drive, be sure to keep in mind that Future Domain SCSI cards are a little goofy as they tend to check SCSI-IDs in reverse order...so if using multiple drives you should make sure you boot drive is set to ID6.

I think all scsi devices are like that. I know my ps/2 9595A has to have it's boot device at 6 and so dose my server 330 (anything else results in a boot error).

Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 54 Location: Nottingham, England

harshbarj wrote:

how did it "hung"? (ie. did you get any errors?)

It just displayed this, and halted:

If I attach a terminator to the external port, I get this:

Then it booted into dos as normal

BTW, have you used one of these cards with an external drive before?
Because i've been doining some googleing, and think it could have some odd proprietary apple scsi pinout, not regular scsi I :/
Still doesn't explain why it's hanging tho...

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Yes, both of your IBM machines need the boot device set as ID6 because they are using Future Domain SCSI adapters. Every microchannel SCSI controller I have ever seen is by Future Domain. However, starting at ID0 is the standard way of scanning the bus. That's the way all modern SCSI adapters do it.

Anyway, I've never used the external port on the back of a TMC-850M before, but I have used several adaptec cards with the 25-pin port and an external SCSI-zip drive. I believe that the 25-pin connector was also referred to as apple SCSI in the documentation for those cards. As far as I know most if not all 25-pin SCSI ports are Apple SCSI, as I believe they were the first to make the interface popular. Probaby because it was cheaper than using a 50-pin centronics connector. You can buy adapters to interface with 50 pin devices if you need to. I wouldn't worry too much. It sounds like your card is working properly.