SGI: Hardware

Using a Compact Flash card adapted to IDE adapted to 50-pin SCSI for installing and booting IRIX on an older IRIS (PI or Indigo).
I notice the classic Mac enthusiasts are trying this: here and here .
Anyone tried it? Any technical reasons it wouldn't work with IRIX?

I know the classic Mac OS is a lot smaller, a lot less demanding, and a lot more forgiving than IRIX.

SleepyRegions wrote: a Compact Flash card adapted to IDE adapted to 50-pin SCS

Never tried it - but if you'd like to try it minus an adapter or two, I have a five-slot SMC PCD-60B card reader with a no-adapter-needed SCSI interface that'll read Compact Flash, SD/MMC, Smart Media xD and PCMCIA cards that I'd swap for some other interesting bit of hardware.

I originally picked up the SCSI card reader so I could access CF camera cards from within IRIX, but ended up using a firewire card readers instead.

Hmm I think your best bet would be the ACARD SCSI to IDE bridge, then a CF to IDE, one the IDE side of the ACARD
Got this working on an Apple 6100/66 , so it should, without a doubt work on a SGI indigo , or Indy

Ryan Fox wrote: Hmm I think your best bet would be the ACARD SCSI to IDE bridge, then a CF to IDE, one the IDE side of the ACARD
Got this working on an Apple 6100/66 , so it should, without a doubt work on a SGI indigo , or Indy

Does anyone know a cheap source of these ACARD SCSI to IDE/SATA bridges? Because the one that would be best for an SSD drive in the Indigo, the ARS-2000SUP , would cost me as much as I payed for my Fuel.

I never found a 'cheap' source, just a reputable seller I trusted to get me the items I wanted reliably (Active Network Systems Ltd, www.ans-ltd.co.uk
call 01480 437997 in the UK): ARS-2160H SCSI/SATA U160 bridge box (SCA) and the 68pin equivalent (ARS-2160). The SCA version I use for
performance testing in various systems while the 68pin version is destined for my Fuel with a 128GB OCZ Vertex2E SSD.

Actually I thought the pricing was quite reasonable overall, 108 + 5 shipping for the 68pin model, 99 + 5 shipping for the SCA (+VAT in each case).

Ian.

SleepyRegions wrote: Using a Compact Flash card adapted to IDE adapted to 50-pin SCSI for installing and booting IRIX on an older IRIS (PI or Indigo).
I notice the classic Mac enthusiasts are trying this: here and here .
Anyone tried it? Any technical reasons it wouldn't work with IRIX?

I know the classic Mac OS is a lot smaller, a lot less demanding, and a lot more forgiving than IRIX.

I tried it on an Indy.
Yahma SCSI to IDE that I got from hamei.
Then and an IDE to CF converter, IRIX didnt like my CF converter so didn't work, never tried with another IDE-CF converter, it worked on a PC and the SCSI to IDE converter worked just fine with a real harddrive.

In the end I settled for a quiet IDE hard drive in the Indy and did not bother with the CF card.

//Harry

Not trying to install and boot IRIX yet, just trying to mount dos(fat)-format flash cards from cameras with an SCM PCD-50B reader in Indigo2. How to mount them ? Can mediad mount them automatically ?

silicium wrote: Can mediad mount them automatically ?

I use Compact Flash media for the same purpose, but connect via Firewire. Compact Flash cards connected to a Firewire controller aren't auto-mounted by mediad.

With IRIX 6.5(.30) I use: to mount the CF card.

As long as there aren't any other DOS file systems mounted, you can use to unmount and extract your CF card.

BTW - DOS/FAT partitions are limited to a max size of 2GB under IRIX.

Thanks for the 'partition=1' option. But using cards with scsi reader is not desktop friendly since mediad from 6.5.22 is unusable

It complains

couldn't find DSO for device at SCSI ctlr 0, id 4

GL1zdA wrote: Does anyone know a cheap source of these ACARD SCSI to IDE/SATA bridges? Because the one that would be best for an SSD drive in the Indigo, the ARS-2000SUP , would cost me as much as I payed for my Fuel.

I too have been looking at the ARS-2000SUP for an Indy, but the $250- price tag + $X- for a hard disk is quite prohibitive.

If you don't mind using IDE, the ACARD 7720U does show up on Ebay from time to time. Ian has a writeup about installing one in an Indy . I've also tried the Yamaha V769970 in the Indy and was able to install IRIX onto the drive. I don't remember why I didn't keep that setup, aside from it not really fitting inside the chassis in any sensible way.

I wonder if the Yamaha could be connected to the SCSI ribbon cable and the other end of the adapter attached to an IDE extension cable which would then connect to the hard drive? In an Indy, that would theoretically allow you to bunch the Adapter and wires above the IDE drive which could then live in an regular drive sled instead of floating loose in the chassis.

zafunk wrote:

GL1zdA wrote: Does anyone know a cheap source of these ACARD SCSI to IDE/SATA bridges? Because the one that would be best for an SSD drive in the Indigo, the ARS-2000SUP , would cost me as much as I payed for my Fuel.

I too have been looking at the ARS-2000SUP for an Indy, but the $250- price tag + $X- for a hard disk is quite prohibitive.

If you don't mind using IDE, the ACARD 7720U does show up on Ebay from time to time. Ian has a writeup about installing one in an Indy .

I decided to get a SCA drive and a SCA->SCSI Ultra converter. Unfortunately a simple 80->50 won't fit physically into the drive sleds in the Indigo, I will have to try a SCA->68/50 converter, which has the 50 pin connector a bit higher.

zafunk wrote: I've also tried the Yamaha V769970 in the Indy and was able to install IRIX onto the drive. I don't remember why I didn't keep that setup, aside from it not really fitting inside the chassis in any sensible way.

I've seen that one, and it's designed for a 5.25 bay, so it's not very useful for me.

GL1zdA wrote: I've seen that one, and it's designed for a 5.25 bay, so it's not very useful for me.

Unfortunately, so is the 7720U. Acard did make adapters that fit underneath the drive (ARS-2000FW), but they no longer seem to be in production.

I did find a website that sells them, but goodness knows if they have any in stock. Again, $150 is still a bit steep.

I may end up buying a Yamaha adapter and trying the extension cables in my Indy. I don't know if you could do the same in an Indigo - stuff the adapter in a second drive bay and run extensions between the two?

zafunk wrote:

GL1zdA wrote: I've seen that one, and it's designed for a 5.25 bay, so it's not very useful for me.

Unfortunately, so is the 7720U. Acard did make adapters that fit underneath the drive (ARS-2000FW), but they no longer seem to be in production.

I used one of those over 10 years ago in an Indigo2, it did work extremely well. There's a little writeup on it in the blog from 2002: http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives ... g-the.html and http://www.nekochan.net/weblog/archives ... -gear.html

One of the first arrivals was the ACARD ARS-2000FU Ultra SCSI-IDE bridge I mentioned last month. I have to say the bridge has been everything I hoped for; extremely easy to install and use. It's amazing how much storage capacity this gives you for such little cash and the performance is wonderful. I can't say enough good things about these ... in fact, I'm going to buy a couple more of them very soon (one for the Indigo(1) and another for the second bay in the Indigo2). After setting the SCSI ID on the bridge and connecting everything up it was a simple matter to clone my existing system drive over. I used the "Cloning A Root Disk" section of Ian Mapleson's Disk and File System Administration guide, opting for the xfsdump/xfsrestore method outlined in that document.

Folks - remember that IDE SSDs _do_ exist, and are fairly cheap, etc.

So instead of SCSI -> IDE -> CF, you can just simplify SCSI -> IDE, and I suspect with a lot fewer compatibility issues.

For the OP, there's this:

http://www.artmix.com/j_home.html

SCSI to CF. Aimed at the Macintosh and NeXT crowd. He has both 2.5" adapters for laptops and 3.5" ones for desktops. Don't know if they'd work in an SGI.