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List:       classiccmp
Subject:    Re: TK-50 drive information
From:       Tothwolf <tothwolf () concentric ! net>
Date:       2013-08-31 19:00:38
Message-ID: alpine.DEB.2.00.1308311335130.32697 () brioche ! invalid ! domain
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On Sat, 31 Aug 2013, Alexandre Souza wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Aug 2013, Tothwolf wrote:
> > On Fri, 30 Aug 2013, Glen Slick wrote:
> > > On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks@gmail.com> 
> > > wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Here's a way-off idea from existing components... I wonder if one
> > > > could attach a SCSI<->IDE adapter to a 3rd Party TMSCP controller?  If
> > > > so, then one might be able to _then_ hang an IDE<->CF interface off of
> > > > that.  It would be one CF card==one "tape", but it would work.  A
> > > > "real" TK50 stores up to 95MB (if the controller keeps the tape fed),
> > > > so a 128MB CF card would hold an entire tape's worth of bytes (unless
> > > > somehow blocking sizes messed things up and it took a larger card to
> > > > digest what was thrown at it).
> > > 
> > > I wonder how expensive these devices are.  I suppose if you can't find
> > > pricing information on the net anywhere and have to call up someone
> > > for pricing information they are probably too expensive for anyone
> > > here, although from the product photos the actual production cost
> > > probably isn't too high.
> > > 
> > > http://www.ssd.gb.com/Products/SCSI_Bridge_Emulators_to_CF/index.php
> > > 
> > > http://www.ssd.gb.com/Products/Datasheets/SCSI_Bridge_Emulator_to_CF/PERTEC-Interface-1-2-TapeDriveEmulator-to-CF.pdf
> > > 
> > 
> > ACARD made a number of ATA<->SCSI bridge devices that would allow an 
> > ATA/IDE device to be used on a SCSI bus, but last I checked they were 
> > reselling used for ~$150-200 USD. I eventually gave up on the idea of 
> > hanging one of these along with a CompactFlash to IDE adapter off an 8-bit 
> > ISA SCSI card that I have. 
> 
> Andrew Lynch (on this list) is taking care of a good scsi emulator 
> project, google for n8vem scsi.

Yes, the SCSI to IDE adapter is an interesting project. I passed up on 
building one of the boards from first batch due to my current backlog of 
other projects. I'm also not sure if it would work for my purposes due to 
some of the design limitations, but I'll probably try one at a later date 
anyway just to see what it does. I also have some XT-IDE boards from 
Andrew that I've not yet built (in my project queue) which will do what I 
originally intended to do with an 8-bit ISA SCSI card, SCSI to IDE bridge, 
and a CompactFlash card.

If someone could come up with an inexpensive clone of what ACARD does with 
their SCSI to IDE and SCSI to SATA bridges, they would likely sell very 
well. ACARD's prices for these are simply too high which keeps them out of 
reach of the typical hobbyist. There is going to be more and more demand 
for such bridge devices in the future, especially if they don't have any 
major performance bottlenecks and can operate at or near the same speed as 
the SCSI bus.

As SCSI drives eventually fail, it would be nice to be able to replace 
them with modern SATA drives, but one of the major challenges may be all 
the different SCSI interfaces. It might not be possible for example to 
physically fit a bridge board with a narrow SCSI connector along with a 
narrow to wide adapter + high byte terminator into an existing drive sled, 
so there would need to be many different bridge versions for the different 
SCSI interfaces.


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