This is External-2.88Mb-floppy-on-030-cubes.... in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 01-Nov-1991 16:50:50 From: cyliax@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu (Ingo Cyliax) Subject: External 2.88Mb floppy on '030 cubes.... Now that I received my Mathematic/Sybase/ACL upgrade, I got a chance to test my external SCSI floppy that I had put together earlier this year. So far I have been able to read DD and HD floppies using it with little or no problems. Anyway, after tweaking one of the programs that I use to initialize my floppy, it all worked without a hitch. Here is the scoop on my setup. I'm using Teac's FD-235JS-401 3.5" 2.88Mb SCSI floppy which I bought from Traxx Electronics (800 621-3102). It lives in an old floppy case with it's own power supply. I also made a my own DB-25->50pin header cables (the '030 uses a DB25 SCSI connector like the Mac) from the pinouts in the back of the NeXT User's manual. I didn't have to fiddle with the jumpers on the floppy except for the SCSI-ID, which I set to ID = 4. No particular reason to use this ID, as long as it's larger then the first harddisk so it doesn't try to boot from the floppy. Now, the only problem with this floppy is that upon reset it will initialize itself to a totally unuseable condition and it doesn't automatically select the proper geometry and density needed for PC/Next compatible hardware format. So I had to write a utility that would initialize the disk to one of (DD,HD or ED) densities/geometries depending on what type of floppy you want to use. After that's done, it all just works as expected. The automounter let's you mount PC and NeXT formatted floppies and automagically drops them in your browser. When it wants to eject the floppy, an alert panels pops up telling you to eject the floppy manually and goes away once you do it. The software is available on "dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu in pub/goo/floppy.*.Z". Maybe someone can drop it on one the archive sites. You only need the program 'fdsense' out of this archive. It needs to be setuid root or whatever is allowed to open /dev/sg0 for writing. You might also have to change the default target by editing the nextio.c file. It's define'ed to be 4. BTW, this program seems to also work with the PLI drives. Some day I hope to clean these utilities up and maybe even build a NeXTStep interface to let you select geometries, initialize floppies, tar them, etc... Here is my wish list of problems and things that I would like to have a fix for : 1. the drive should try to auto density select. 2. auto-ejecting SCSI drive would be nice. 3. be able to tell the scsi driver how often to check the drive for floppy insertion. I feel NeXT did a really bang up job with their SCSI driver. I have never had less problems adding various SCSI peripherals than to a NeXT. The NeXT SCSI seems to be mostly plug and play. Ever try to add a SCSI floppy to a Sun, without a custom driver ? I wish all computer manufactures made it so easy. Also, the /dev/sg0 interface is really great for those 'not so standard' SCSI periphs. . Hope this helps, -ingo to the NeXT for those 'special' projects.
Date: Sun 01-Nov-1991 22:57:01 From: lee@pipe.cs.wisc.edu (Soo Lee) Subject: Re: External 2.88Mb floppy on '030 cubes.... In article <1991Nov1.165050.26724@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> cyliax@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu (Ingo Cyliax) writes: > [stuff deleted] >I'm using Teac's FD-235JS-401 3.5" 2.88Mb SCSI floppy which I bought from >Traxx Electronics (800 621-3102). It lives in an old floppy case with it's >own power supply. I also made a my own DB-25->50pin header cables (the '030 >uses a DB25 SCSI connector like the Mac) from the pinouts in the back of the >NeXT User's manual. I didn't have to fiddle with the jumpers on the floppy >except for the SCSI-ID, which I set to ID = 4. No particular reason to use >this ID, as long as it's larger then the first harddisk so it doesn't try >to boot from the floppy. > Isn't it FD-235JS-501-U? Have you tried 501-U instead of 401-U? I believe 501-U can detect ED diskette automatically from the position of hole on the disk jacket. By the way, would you post how much it was? Thanks in advance. Soo lee@cs.wisc.edu
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.