Date   : Tue, 06 Jul 2004 11:31:04 +0100
From   : Richard Gellman <splodge@...>
Subject: Re: Acorn Winchester unit

Jules Richardson wrote:

>On Tue, 2004-07-06 at 09:50, Richard Gellman wrote:
>  
>
>>I have the SCSI spec at home (its a thrilling docu.zzzz doc.zzz mezzzz 
>>ntzzzzzzz *SNORE*) that covers commands for formatting a device and I 
>>believe it does mention specifics like sector size. 
>>    
>>
>
>Ha ha! 
>
>Is that the SCSI-1 spec? If so, any chance of a copy? Seriously, I have
>a need for the *original* SCSI spec, without all the later bells and
>whistles that were added. I've only been able to find much later
>versions of the spec on the web.
>
>I want to get an Omti SCSI-ST506 bridge board working on the PC, so that
>I can back up the drives from all the Torch Triple X systems that I have
>(which all use the Omti cards). 
>
>Unfortunately the Omti's a real dinosaur, and whilst it's SCSI it even
>pre-dates the common command set and so doesn't support expected things
>like the identify command. That really messes up modern SCSI controllers
>(and drivers) which expect identify to work! Hence the reason I think
>I'm going to have to build my own controller, which means I could do
>with the definitive reference on how all the bus timings and SCSI phases
>work...
>  
>
Well now. I have something you may well be interested in.

A while back, I construted a device consisting of a butchered parallel 
cable, a 50-way SCSI ribbon, and a 25-way D connector. I also put 
together some DOS software to use it. It can connect to an ADFS 
formatted drive on a SCSI interface, and using very basic commands 
extract the information thereof, and even skips over the "free spaces".

Tis a tad slow mind. Takes about a day to do 100Mb.

-- Richard