I want to connect a NeXT N3000 MO drive to an x86 PC with a standard SCSI interface to read MO disks created by this type of drives. However, the drive has a 20-pin interface. I am wondering how I can connect this drive to a standard SCSI interface card. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter
There is a 50 pin SCSI board for these drives but they use a non-standard structure which requires a special driver. I chased a bunch of contacts at Canon and was never able to find the drivers or more detail on exactly what was needed.
Since there is a SCSI board inside the drive, I guess the 20-pin connector in the drive connects to this SCSI board. If I have a 20-pin to 68/80-pin converter, would it be possible to connect this drive to a standard SCSI card, such as an Adaptec one?
There is a board that connects the MO drive cable - the 20 pin cable, to a SCSI interface board. I tried connecting that to a standard adapter using various OS's etc. and was unable to get it working. After a bit of digging around, it seems like there *was* a special driver for Windows that allowed the MO drives to be read, but I could never find a copy or documentation about it.
If I recall, the native NeXT MO was a highly customized interface and relied a lot on the VLSI DMA chipset. Meaning, I dont think you can get it to work on any system other than an original NeXT cube (030, 040, turbo, nitro/pyro) motherboard.
As Gavin mentioned there is an interface board which converts the custom interface to SCSI. This board comes from the canofile line of hardware. The mechanisms are the same, but the controllers fundamentally work differently from the next. Even if you get the card working there is no way to read a next formatted disk. I forget why, but the limitation was in hardware and not something a custom driver could fix.
I have what appears to be a double-sided version of the Canon MO drive in an external SCSI case, along with some media.
It came from the stash of an Apple Education rep who had a bunch of gear I helped with after he passed.
It exhibits the same behavior as the typical bad NeXT drive - spin up and then spin down when media is inserted.
It's on my "gotta get to that someday" pile as I'm curious how the Mac might have seen it, and if the interface on the drive itself inside the case appears to be the same or similar to the NeXT MO drive.
I believe Canon did make a version of its drive for other manufacturers but it failed quickly because the field of magneto optical drives was advancing so fast. The original NeXT MO version was 256MB single sided. Soon 650 MB drives came out, then 1.3GB. And then I think Fujitsu came out with 3.5" MO drives that went from 230MB to 650MB to maybe even larger. I forget now.
Anyway, I think the NeXT version of the canon drive had very custom versions of controller logic in it so it could only work on a NeXT. I'm not sure if the non-next version that came out can read or write to the NeXT version discs.
Would be cool if you could take a photo of it
@Scutboy, that's a pretty rare media format you have!
Quote from: zombie on February 23, 2025, 10:16:45 AMI believe Canon did make a version of its drive for other manufacturers but it failed quickly because the field of magneto optical drives was advancing so fast. The original NeXT MO version was 256MB single sided. Soon 650 MB drives came out, then 1.3GB. And then I think Fujitsu came out with 3.5" MO drives that went from 230MB to 650MB to maybe even larger. I forget now.
Anyway, I think the NeXT version of the canon drive had very custom versions of controller logic in it so it could only work on a NeXT. I'm not sure if the non-next version that came out can read or write to the NeXT version discs.
Would be cool if you could take a photo of it @Scutboy, that's a pretty rare media format you have!
Yes - I plan to include some pictures; just need to get it out onto my workbench in some good light