Date   : Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:41:13 +0000
From   : "David Lomas" <davidl@...>
Subject: Re: Hard Drives

On Dec 21, 11:49, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Hard Drives
> In article <3.0.3.32.19971221015601.006a29d8@...>,
> Crispin Boylan <viewtronix@...> writes
>
> > I have been reading a lot of messages
> >about someone who produced an SCSI controller board for the BBC, so that
> >any SCSI device could be connected, the total cost then was about 35, so
> >it should have fallen a bit by now.
>
> Discussion of that board here has suggested it might be SASI, a
> forerunner to SCSI, and therefore unlikely to work with modern hard
> drives.
>
> >Anyway, I was wondering, is anyone still on here that knows how to make/has
> >a controller board for the BBC, and if so what drives are compatible?
>
> You need more than one 'controller'.  You need a 1Mhz bus host
> interface, an Adaptec SCSI-to-MFM card, and an MFM drive.  This is how
> people making hard drives for the BBC (Acorn, Watford, Viglen etc) built
> them.  The 1Mhz bus card implements a simple SCSI-ish interface which is
> then used to run the Adaptec SCSI-to-MFM adapter, which then controls
> the drive.  You therefore need to supply power to two cards as well as
> the drive.
>

Mmm. Does that mean that the 1MHz bus card _might_ drive a SCSI hard disc,
rather than going through the second adapter to a MFM drive? Or did your
comment above that mean the 1MHz bus card was actually a SASI card?

Any more details on it anyway (e.g. web addresses etc.)?

Thanks,

Dave.

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