SCSI to CompactFlash

i dug up another adapterboard ->

http://artmix.com/CF_AztecMonster.html

i ordered two, will let you know how it goes as soon as it's delivered.



regards,
michael

I've often wondered how hard it would be to make a 50 pin SCSI device that would allow access to an image stored on a server somewhere. The network would be fast enough for sure.

today the CF AztecMonster arrived and I installed it immediately. did a fresh install of NS 3.3 and let DrivePerformance.app do a quick benchmark ->

http://offworld.ch/cf_aztecmonster_bench_01.tiff

while reading from the "disk" the interface hits its limits: narrow SCSI-II in asynchronous mode can transfer up to 3.0 megabytes per second.

picture of the installed Compact-Flash card in the slab ->
http://t.co/9tqjiz9p

during the boot-sequence the turbo-cube and turbo-slab are throwing an error:

Feb  7 19:37:50 cube mach: SCSI 53C90A Controller, Target 7, as sc0 at 0x2014000
Feb  7 19:37:50 cube mach: ATA     CF 8GB Rev 2011 as sd0 at sc0 target 0 lun 0
Feb  7 19:37:50 cube mach: sd0 (0,0): ERROR op:0x1b sd_state:7 scsi status:0x0
Feb  7 19:37:50 cube mach:    Disk Label: Disk
Feb  7 19:37:50 cube mach:    Disk Capacity 3551MB, Device Block 512 bytes

apart from this message it seems to work fine.

googling brought this up:
SCSI OPCODE 0x1b is the 'START STOP UNIT command sent by the host to set the power condition of the device


regards,
michael

you should report this issue to the firmware coder of the emulator card, even if not blocking for booting it may cause problems if the system tries to stop scsi for sleeping.
The reported capacity of 3.5Gb is strange for a "ATA CF 8GB Rev 2011" reply to the inquiry command (and it does not match with the 2Gb CF of the photo).
I'll probably get a similar card for my turbo slab, I find it a bit noisy and it's probably coming from the old scsi disc.

yeah, sent him an email already...

AFAIK NEXTSTEP or OPENSTEP have no sleep or drive-spin-down features built-in.

the mixup with pictures and bootmessages has a simple reason: i have two CF AztecMonsters, a turbo-cube and a turbo-slab and a bunch of SLC based CF cards i tried yesterday  8)  it happens with every combination (cube/slab/CF2GB/CF8GB). i suspect the kernel just doesn't know what to do with an 8GB disk...

not only are these old SCSI disks emitting really annoying noises, they also die one after another. and seektimes are sloooow :!:

if there's an 8GB CF-card in my external reader ->
http://t.co/R9PT1eGZ

the kernel also reports a disk with 3.5GB capacity.


Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI 53C90A Controller, Target 7, as sc0 at 0x2014000
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: ATA     CF 8GB Rev 2011 as sd0 at sc0 target 0 lun 0
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: sd0 (0,0): ERROR op:0x1b sd_state:7 scsi status:0x0
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach:    Disk Label: Disk
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach:    Disk Capacity 3551MB, Device Block 512 bytes
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI    PCCARD Flash Rev 1.28 as sd1 at sc0 target 2 lun 0
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: Waiting for drive to come ready
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: ...................
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI    Compact Flash Rev 1.28 as sd2 at sc0 target 2 lun 1
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: sd2: UNIT ATTENTION
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach:    Disk Label: Disk
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach:    Disk Capacity 3551MB, Device Block 512 bytes
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI    SmartMedia Rev 1.28 as sd3 at sc0 target 2 lun 2
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: Waiting for drive to come ready
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: ...................
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI    Secure Digital Rev 1.28 as sd4 at sc0 target 2 lun 3
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: Waiting for drive to come ready
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: ...................
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: SCSI    Memory Stick Rev 1.28 as sd5 at sc0 target 2 lun 4
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: Waiting for drive to come ready
Feb  8 16:37:09 turboslab mach: ...................

Hey Mike, I'm curious about your experience with the A400T SCSI-based Flash readers. I'm using one myself (mounted internally) in an 030 cube. Here are some things I've observed:

1) If any of the slots are empty, I get a long wait as the OS polls the device looking for media.  (These are the "Waiting for drive to come ready" messages in your logfile).  It seems to make sense to fill these un-used slots with old cheap media just to speed up booting.

2) Have you had any luck using BuildDisk to install an OS on any of your flash media?  I have a feeling the disktab system has no clue how to deal with this kind of media. My only successes have been dd'ing raw bits from working NextStep installs onto flash drives, using Linux or OS X.  

3) Have you seen any kind of weird delays and hiccups in reading from the flash drives, possibly caused by wear leveling?

I've done similar disk tests, and will post some image grabs of my results tonight.  But suffice it say I was getting a lot slower results than you are...

I will admit, my scenario is an extreme one -- an 030 Cube with NextStep 3.x.  I'm sure both performance and compatibility get much better with OpenStep 4.2 on fast 040 hardware, but...

1) yep, the "Waiting for drive to come ready" delays are somewhat annoying. I wish I could disable the unused slots completely...

2) nope, same here. no luck with BuildDisk. it also gives me  an error (not finding suitable media). but I have made CF cards containing NS 3.3 and OS 4.2 installers. just copied the ISO images with the dd command in OSX to the compactflash card and then booting the NeXT from the external CF reader with one of these cards inserted. installation to the internal CF card then goes really quick  8)

3) you may have seen this thread -> http://nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2995
I am using SingleLevelCell based CF cards from PC Engines with all kinds of operating systems. no problems at all with these ->
http://pcengines.ch/cf8slc.htm
they go up to 40+ MB/sec when installed in the ALIX mainboards.

Might someone help those limited to English language with more details about how/where to order the SCSI to CF equipment?  Assuming I could find or create a boot disk image, could I use dd to copy the image to the raw disk device associated with a flash card connected to a host system via a USB based adapter?

to my best knowledge, there's only one place to order the CF AztecMonster -> http://artmix.com/
just send him an e-mail to support@artmix.com containing your order (in english :D ). he accepts paypal.
the external reader/writer can be ordered at http://a4000t.com/

yes, that's what I do all the time. I copy images to/from the CF cards using the dd command in OSX (CF card in a USB reader/writer).

regards,
michael

since I ordered another two CF AztecMonsters from artmix.com he included new/other firmware ROMs and I can report that there are no more errormessages during boot. performance with the new firmware is the same as before: 2.99MB/sec. read and about 1.3MB/sec. write. the firmware version that works is V 3.86 (with V 3.89 i got strange hangs and SCSI timeout errors). V 3.7M worked also but i had the SCSI errormessage during boot.

regards,
michael