I have an Apple IIgs with a Scsi card and I want to get a Cdrom working with it. This computer has a scsi harddrive with GS-OS 6.0.4 it boots to. I have a known working External Apple 300 CDrom drive I am trying to use but I also have a couple 3rd party external scsi cdroms as well. I loaded the Media Control panel and here is a photo.
From what I have seen online I should see a SCSI entry under "select a port" Its not there. What have I missed? Is there a walktrhough I can use for setting up a CDrom correctly on GS-OS?
I don't see why you would need to select both a device and a port. Just selecting "AppleCDSC" should be enough.
Well there isnt alot out there documenting the process and I found this video on youtube. As you can see he has a SCSI entry under "ports" I do not. https://youtu.be/Ybs917y55QY?t=184
If I understand correctly, and I only worked on the official apple stuff... You have a SCSI card (is it apple HS or regular? Or third party?)You have the SCSI chain configured correctly? i.e. Unique SCSI device IDs for each device? Controller is 7, HD 6, then CD-300 as something lower?The chain is properly terminated? Termination is the most confusing part, and even the experts can go nuts with termination. I see you're using 6.0.4 but you also have the custom driver for CD-300?GS/OS natively only suppored the CD-150 (caddy model). I think that media controller includes the driver for CD-300 driver but that's all new to me.If you have an apple controller card, I'd verify your chain is correctly identified with the SCSI tools (ProDOS tool). Although I don't remeber what the scsi tools does with unknowing device IDs, I thought it reports unknown devices at that address (ID), but maybe not.
Yes I am running 6.0.4, The bus is properly terminated. Its a 3rd party scsi card. I am using no custom driver, only what was included with GS-OS 6.0.4
Do you have a link to the SCSI tools prodos disk image. Would be happy to run that and post a screenshot. I dont have that disk.
I have copies of both the Apple ProDOS SCSI utilities and SCSI Diasgnostics disk. I'll see about attaching ghem to this message but if that fails I can always send them to you via PM. Looks Like I can't attach them so I'll PM you.
in your reply by using the "Media browser" in the editor's toolbar, if you have them as zip files.
I followed tolderlund's suggestion and here is everything I've downloaded for use with the SCSI card. I hope this helps.
Apple II SCSI Card.zip Thanks for the suggestion tolderlund, I've never uploaded anything here before.
Magnusfalkirk, I downloaded your disk images. Apparently they are only made to work with the Apple branded (or maybe clones of ) scsi cards. Mine is definitely not an Apple branded one. I went through ever single disk image and they pretty much all say "apple scsi card not found".
IMG_20221122_094820.jpg
I do have the utility disk for this card and I was reading the PDF manual (which also tells me the correct jumpers which are set already) and on the section for IIGs it does list CDroms and zip drives so that implies it works with them. There was a driver file it said to add to GS-OS system/drivers folder which I did. I had more access to partitions and it changed the icons so I know the driver worked. Still no cdrom though.
Yeah, the CMS card is not compatible with the Apple card even though it uses a SCSI chip similar to the one Apple used in early Macs.
This link is worth a read...
https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/MiscInfo/Hardware/cms
All this reminds me... I've got a CMS SCSI card with the 3/1/90 EPROM on it as well as a CMS external SCSI enclosure that I need to list on eBay one of these days...
I either need to do that or get one of those "BlueSCSI" hard drive emulators... No sense in letting it sit around. But I don't really have a need for more storage devices for Apple II right now... I've got an extra Booti I am going to be listing soon as well.
I could not get blue scsi working on my CMS card (also 1990 eprom). But there is some good news.
We all thought the CMS card kind of stinks because it can only address any two 32MB prodos partitions at one time, but that turns out to not be entirely true. With the CMS GS-OS driver file I mentioned in my previous post enabled, you have access to ALL partitions under GS-OS at once! So now I am booting GS-OS and I have to sit through 68 notifications (there are sixty-seven 32MB partitions and one slightly less) of an un-initialized 32MB volule, Should I eject or Initialize! Yikes. I thought there as a GS-OS limit as to how many prodos drives the system can handle at once. Wasnt it 8 or 16 total? I gave up at 9.
What If I swap out my CMS scsi card for my Apple FAST SCSI card or my brand new GGLABS A2SCSI card and keep the first 3 or 4 32MB prodos partitions but convert the remainder of the drive into 4GB HFS (thats the max IIgs can see right?) partitions so I only have a few drives. Think that will work? Then put the CMS card back in and use the drive without so many partitions.
All in all this CMS card is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. I am pretty pleasantly surprised by it. And I paid $67.00 for it so thats not the end of the world.
A note on bluescsi: This is just my opinion so dont rail me. I jumped all over blue scsi when it came out. I built them myself for such a low price point it seemed great. But there are compatibility issues I hope they keep on working at. I mostly used them on Macs and havent tried to much with Apple II. In fact I havent had one work with apple II successfully yet. I even got the Zuluscsi which is based on Bluescsi. But I found it still had the same compatibility issues. Again I know there is a community working on it and I hope they keep addressing things. I found the SCSI2SD devices are the most rock solid, and of course the most pricey. Unfortunately with the chip shortage they are just not to be had.
Good to know about the issues with BlueSCSI... and availability issues for SCSI2SD... I guess that makes the decision that I should list the CMS SCSI card and external enclosure on eBay.
It could very well work with the bluescsi. I just gave up after 20 minutes. Dont take my efforts as law on that one.
I have SCSI2SD's, BlueSCSI's, and ZuluSCSI's, all of which seem to have their happiest systems (but SCSI2SD has been rock solid). The ZuluSCSI is made by the same folks who were making SCSI2SD. I have run into some issues, but they have been helpful sorting them. I'm using one right now in my LC II but have not gotten it working on my IIgs yet, but another user reported it working. Funny enough the BlueSCSI works great on the IIgs.
See some infos here: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/replacing-scsi-cd-rom-drive-with-scsi-sd-card-adapter.300/post-358537
Namely this, quoted:
Hi, I own Rabbit Hole Computing, (formerly doing business as Inertial Computing), and we've been manufacturing and selling SCSI2SD V5's for over five years. SCSI2SD V5.0 will likely never be in stock again with ITEAD. The CY8C5267AXI-LP051Cypress/Infineon semiconductor PSoC 5LP microcontroller used in SCSI2SD V4/V5 is unavailable globally, and the manufacturer-suppied lead time is currently eighty weeks, or just over 1.5 years. We spent nearly one calendar year waiting for more of these chips to ship to us, directly from the manufacturer. We developed ZuluSCSI as a logical and spiritual successor to SCSI2SD V5. We knew this day was coming, we stockpiled SCSI2SD V5 parts to the extent that we were financially able to, and when it became clear this was going to be a long term problem, we invested signficant financial resources in development of ZuluSCSI, almost exactly one year ago.ZuluSCSI can deliver read speeds ~4x that of SCSI2SD V4/V5 (same chip), and it's overall a lot easier to use.You can buy a fully assembled and tested ZuluSCSI RP2040 for $59 today. We're based in the US.
Ignoring cost, right now I'm using a RaSCSI, as it has a web interface where I can mount ISOs on the fly. It's costly since raspberry Pi's are costly, but man is the thing awesome. I can even print from OS9 to my new Brother laser printer using the RaSCSI as a bridge (networked, not over the actual SCSI port). It's super feature rich for tinkering but I don't use one as a primary storage solution for a machine (though I do run an AFP daemon / netatalk on it now).
Well I dont think you can just say Bluescsi works on a IIgs, it depends on the SCSI adapter as this thread posts.
Yeah I had spoken to them about avaialbility on SCSI2SD and they mentioned ZULUSCSI and thats why I bought it as well, but its still a very new product and has bugs to be worked out.
Rasscsi doesnt appeal to me as it seems like a waste to need a whole raspberry pi to use it. Just my opinion,
I mean, sure, the card may/will matter. I use the most common one I see, the rev C or clone Apple SCSI card. BlueSCSI has always worked well for me with that card [on the IIgs].
As I said the RaSCSI isn't a permanent solution in any of my machines but more a Swiss army knife. The disk emulation is nice but it also has:
Daynaport SCSI ethernet card emulation
The ability to share a modern CUPS printer as a laserwriter for classic Macs on the ethernet appletalk network.
AFP server
Web interface for ISOs and changing disk images on the flu. This helps me a lot for setting up machines with internal scsi2sd that I don't want to open to get to the SD Card.
Apple II boot server (haven't tried this yet)
A bunch of stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting.
For most people a RaSCSI is overly expensive or complicated, but it serves many of these purposes on many of my machines on an as needed basis. For CD gaming on the powermac, the web UI for ISOs is great. Being able to pull down my HDD image and work with an emulator and SFTP it back is also great. I guess it also helps I was/am a Linux sysadmin so managing the bells and whistles isn't bad for me personally.
From what I see in the screenshot and the comments about the OS I think you're running into the incompatibility of the CD-300. What you may not know is GS/OS only supported the protocol found in the CD-150. The CD-300 was a different protocol which which is why the CD-150 is the only drive officially supported CD drive.You later asked about the number of partitions and I believe the correct answer is 16. This was recently asked on a FB group and did answer correctly, but now can't rember if I said 16 or 32. I think it's 16... Whatever number I said was confirmed by the person who asked. 16 was quite a large number when the 20MB 20SCHD originally cost $800! FWIW, another "related" side-discussion in that FB thread came from someone quoting the SCSI driver source code saying it had SCSI-II support. While that never happened, I remember the developer playing with the protocol but that was just internal stuff that was never released. I'm not sure what source is available on arcive, maybe someone should compile it and check.
From what I see in the screenshot and the comments about the OS I think you're running into the incompatibility of the CD-300. What you may not know is GS/OS only supported the protocol found in the CD-150. The CD-300 was a different protocol which which is why the CD-150 is the only drive officially supported CD drive.You later asked about the number of partitions and I believe the correct answer is 16. This was recently asked on a FB group and did answer correctly, but now can't rember if I said 16 or 32. I think it's 16... Whatever number I said was confirmed by the person who asked. 16 was quite a large number when the 20MB 20SCHD originally cost $800! FWIW, another "related" side-discussion in that FB thread came from someone quoting the SCSI driver source code saying it had SCSI-II support. While that never happened, I remember the developer playing with the protocol but that was just internal stuff that was never released. I'm not sure what source is available on arcive, maybe someone should compile it and check.
I'm not sure the CMS card can do anything except 32M ProDOS partitions.
Without some other 3rd party software that knows how to talk to it directly, there is no way for it to work with another file system, like HFS or ISO9660 or anything like that.
It thinks it really was a basic IIe card that just happened to work in the IIgs also.
If you managed to burn a CD with ProDOS partitions on it in a way that the CMS card would recognize, that might work, but it wouldn't be very flexible. I never tried it.
Well I tried the hard drive on my secquential systems Ram/Fast SCSI and GGlabs A2Scsi and they cannot see the individual prodos partitions just the drive name. So Modifying the existing partitions is out the door. I have a pretty good feeling if I format/partition on another card the CMS card would then not be able to read the drive. I guess it wouldnt hurt to try.
Well From what I learned online it seems the issue is the driver file. The ONLY widely supported driver under GS-OS is for the AppleCD SC Apples first HUGE caddy driven 1x model. And thats why they go for big money.
Its a shame, I know alot of people use emulators now in replacement of real hardware but lots of us still have plenty of the real things. I have at least 8 or 10 Apple CD 300 drives in both external and internal models that still work fine. They are super easy to find. Why has noone made a driver file for them or maybe a generic SCSI cd driver? I am no programmer but I know there is so much new software coming out, even GS-OS 6.0.4 is new, why hasnt there been updated CDrom support?
An interesting question for sure.
I'm curious if any of the SCSI emulation devices on the market that support CD images now could be made to work. Not a direct solution or as good as updating GSOS driver(s) somehow of course, but it would be neat. Setting the device ID would be easy but it actually working is a whole different ballgame.
It's interesting that you had to go online to learn that when I said exactly that in messages #4, #17, and the double post #18 of this thread! SMH
Yes GS/OS never supported any CD-ROM drive other than the CD-150 period. If you care to know, the naming comes from read speeds: CD 150 (1x, 150kB/s), CD 300 (2x, 300kB/s), CD 600 (4x, 600kB/s). 6.0.4 was also NOT an apple release, so whlie it may provide additional features there's also no guarantee it will work correctly. That said, some good folks worked on it.
Maintainer of BlueSCSI here wanted to chime in on a few points:
I've been working with someone on trying to debug CMS card (maybe it sends some scsi commands/sense info we dont support/know about, or requires a special format/header?). Would be happy to help debug and figure it out!
I use it in my IIgs with a Sandwich II card - works well booting GS/OS. Happy to help anyone having issues. I was able to just use a ProDOS image created in ciderpress. And yes we keep adding more compatibility with other systems each release.
A common misconception unfortunately - it is not based on BlueSCSI - it's based on SCSI2SD.
Good to see you here, Eric.
Do you know if anyone has tested any form of CD function on the IIgs with a BlueSCSI? I have not; I've only tried HDD Images, both ProDOS and HFS, so far.
If you ever get the BlueSCSI to work with a CMS card, it would be interesting. I've got one here and an external CMS enclosure. I might get a BlueSCSI if it was proven to work.
Eric, thanks for Chiming in. I understand about Zuluscsi being someone elses baby. I am sorry If I worded that improperly.
I know there are advances in Bluescsi all the time but I never knew as to what extant outside of MAC (i.e. Apple II). Glad to know the CMS issues is being worked on and Im not crazy in it not working for me.
These CMS cards I feel have gotten a bad rap and I think they are perfectly fine SCSI cards for most peoples uses. If you get the Bluescsi working on CMS I feel this opens alot of hardware to Apple II folks since the cards are going for much less than the Other SCSI cards on the market. Lets say someone wants basic SCSI functionality with a bluescsi on any Apple II system, getting a CMS card would be cheap and easy enough ( in the same mindset as buying BlueSCSI).
Hey Jeff thanks for chiming in.. :) Maybe next time try not to sound like an arrogant prick? What are you thinking with a commment like that? Ever thought about getting off of your throne and sitting on the floor with the rest of us?
I appreciate ALL the advice people give me (including yours), whether I take it or not and whether I agree with it or not. I make no apologies for doing further testing and research to see the issues with my own hardware and eyes rather than taking someones word for it.
Someday you might understand, it can be disappointing when someone asks but ignores the clear answer. I know you don't know me, but I literally worked on the real products. I was trying to help because I felt your pain and understand the SCSI bus is the furthest thing from plug-n-play. It's amazing it's as hard it can be to get working sometimes. As I said, even the experts ran into problems all the time. Drives with internal terminating resistors; term power? no term power?; incorrect termination; address conflicts; there were too many ways the bus could fail. Even with my experience I recently went though a similar experience with the CD300 and the GS which involved dusting off a 30 year old mac 8500 to swap the interal drive just to be sure it did work. It's only got software control so there was no other way and I spent hours trying to get it working. Then I checked the 300's specs and remembered why, I forgot CD300 (and 600) are SCSI-II protocol. SCSI-II is not backward compatible with SCSI-I and GS/OS only supported SCSI-I. If memory serves, the SCSI driver developer had been working on SCSI-II support, but I only learned about that on the day the II group was shuttered. So, there may be a driver floating around somewhere. I think the driver source code on archive offers some hints it may be coming. You could reach out to the developer and see if he did get it working.
SCSI II did use the same command and data formats as the ür-SCSI, but the specification is stricter about how certain situations must be handled.
Wasn't one of the primary problems related to the initilization timing between controller / device send/listen windows didn't sync so the device remains offline? Maybe also a one-shot and no retry? I thought there were also difference with command encoding and/or response formatting, but those could have been worked out. That said, it's been way too long for me to remember exactly why it wasn't going to be an easy add.