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Doc HM · Apr 1, 2013, 04:51 AM

I'm sure Ill find one, but it's an odd mission. Once I have it I'll have to work out how to clone my clients failing drive onto it. I'm sure CC etc will see it but I'm going to have to work out how to get 2 scsi hdds attached to my office iMac. I wonder if there's a SCSI using Mac that came with firewire?

CharlesS · 05:02 PM

That's an interesting problem. There used to be quite a few USB/FireWire to SCSI adapters on the market, including these:

FireWire(IEEE1394) to Ultra SCSI Converter FR1SX

RATOC Systems International,Inc : USB2.0 to Ultra SCSI Converter U2SCX

Adaptec - Adaptec USB2Xchange

Unfortunately, all of them have since been discontinued, and probably some years ago. It's probably theoretically possible that you could find some used ones floating around, but given how much of a niche product this is, it's probably unlikely, and even if you could find one somewhere, I have no idea if they'd work with modern versions of OS X.

What I wonder is whether modern SCSI is backward-compatible with those old SCSI devices, or whether the interface ever changed at some point. If it's still compatible, you could maybe hunt around for a Mac tower with PCI slots, and put a SCSI card in it.

edit: I'm wrong about availability. There are actually quite a lot of these things floating around on eBay, although most aren't cheap.

Here's one which someone claimed worked with as late as OS X 10.6.7 here.

Here's another one which this page claims can work driverless, which could theoretically address the lack of modern drivers problem (although I'm somewhat skeptical).

Spheric Harlot · Apr 1, 2013, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Doc HM

I'm sure Ill find one, but it's an odd mission. Once I have it I'll have to work out how to clone my clients failing drive onto it. I'm sure CC etc will see it but I'm going to have to work out how to get 2 scsi hdds attached to my office iMac. I wonder if there's a SCSI using Mac that came with firewire?

The original smurfMac G3 towers had an option to come with a factory-installed third-party SCSI-card, IIRC.

angelmb · Apr 2, 2013, 04:16 AM

The original smurfMac G3 towers had an option to come with a factory-installed third-party SCSI-card, IIRC.

That's right. Besides that, SCSI expansion cards were common.

Waragainstsleep · Apr 2, 2013, 07:21 PM

It was an ATTO card I believe. A U3D or something like that. Maybe a U2D. I might have one lying about if you get really stuck.

holstien · 10:03 PM

If money is no option, WeLoveMacs.com still has suitable disks. They've saved colleagues with instruments that are run by Quadras a time or too.

I think you could get an SCA 80 scsi disk of ebay and use an adapter (also ebay) to take it down to the 50 pin ribbon cable. You'll need to partition it to <4 gigs and HFS (no plus). (A resedited or patched copy of Disk Utility would do this, usually on the system install disk). I wouldn't waste time trying to clone it using a modern mac. Just boot off a floppy, copy from the old drive to the new one, bless the system, install the adapted drive, and reboot.

Get the smallest, slowest RPM disk you can find.

Also, a SCSI zip drive (25 or 100 meg) might be an option.

Is the IICX a special momento? Special DSP nubus card? Still in love with Claris or Word 5? For the price of this whole operation, almost any mac made in the past 20 years would be an upgrade. The knowledge and hardware required to keep it rolling is becoming black magic. I'd recommend a late model G4 system that can run OS 9. They are a lot easier to find.

macmediausa · Apr 3, 2013, 12:18 AM

I got lots of SCSI peripherals (brand new Quantum 9100s drives, cases, scsi cards, cables etc).
Pay the shipping and it's yours. Not sure if you can do anything with them.

It's been so long that I can't remember how they are configured...

Frederico · 02:27 AM

What is this cloning you speak of? This is Classic Mac OS, Man; just drag and drop all root level folders and get a free defrag in the process.

I have boxes of fast SCSI drives and external solutions as well; you can either daisy chain two drives internally using an extended SCSI cable (don't forget about SCSI addresses and termination!) or hook one up externally (again with termination!) to copy the data prior to swapping drives.

Ach, memories. SCSI VooDoo and wicked fast speed (compared to ATA33/66).

Also, don't forget this is probably HFS, not HFS+, so forget about using too modern a Mac for the transfer. Do you know what OS it is running? I should have boot floppies that you can use to boot the iicx directly, so you can just data copy from the failing drive to the replacement. You'll want to run Disk First Aid or DiskWarrior 3(2?) on the bad drive first; worst case an older copy of Data Rescue.

bluedog · Apr 3, 2013, 10:23 AM

If you can pay shipping I have standard SCSI drives, wide and ultra2 drives sitting in my basement. As already mentioned, for the system -- no cloning is necessary. Just copy all the files from one drive the other, 'bless' the system by opening the system folder and getting the info for the finder and the system file. The icon on the folder for the system should then depict the finder icon in it. I presume you're running MacOS 7.x. Then choose that system as your startup drive.

Message me if you're interested (I also have an external case with ultra wide SCSI and 40GB in two drives).

Good luck.

mflender · Apr 3, 2013, 11:51 AM

System 7.5.3 floppies can be downloaded here.
Index of /Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.5_Version_7.5.3

Then update to 7.5.5
Index of /Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/System_7.5.5_Update

Or for older versions
Index of /Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System

Doc HM · Apr 4, 2013, 03:40 AM

The system in question is quite odd. The application it runs requires system 6.4.3 (I think from memory) anyway it's tied to a double point level release of system 6 anyway.
I had forgotten that all I need to do is drag everything over. Ah bless the old days. I think the best solution is going to be an external scsi drive, connect it to the mac in question. Drag copy and then open the external case and swap the drives over. May as well make a second backup at the same time so I guess I'll need two drives and an external case.

FYI its a metal cutting/forming machine. The application that controls the machine is tied to one specific mac and one specific version of the OS. We tried using a Iici once (the only difference awa the clock speed of the mono, but it wouldn't work. Crazy old stuff! Thanks for the input.

Doc HM · Apr 4, 2013, 03:41 AM

oh and my hind brain is telling me that these macs are somewhat limited in the size of drive they can see/use. Or is that hooey?

holstien · Apr 4, 2013, 07:02 AM

Yes... as I mentioned earlier, on 68k macs, you'll need to keep the partitions =< 4 gigs.

I haven't tried a drive bigger than that on an old machine, i'm not sure what actually happens in the event you exceed the limit. I rememeber someone saying that sizes get reported incorrectly and files vanish.

Macintosh: File System Specifications and Terms

P · Apr 4, 2013, 07:34 AM

Doc HM: There never was a System 6.4.3. System 6 went from 6.0.0 to 6.0.8. The freaky versions numbers reached their height but also their end with "System Tools 5", where System 4.2 was paired with Finder 6.0

Originally Posted by holstien

Yes... as I mentioned earlier, on 68k macs, you'll need to keep the partitions =< 4 gigs.

I haven't tried a drive bigger than that on an old machine, i'm not sure what actually happens in the event you exceed the limit. I rememeber someone saying that sizes get reported incorrectly and files vanish.

Macintosh: File System Specifications and Terms

You can't create a volume larger than 4 GB in Disk Utility. Nothing much happens, it just won't let you do it. You can partition the disk and make multiple 4 GB volumes, if you like. Note that partitions this large are highly inefficient on old HFS, as the size of the allocation block (= the smallest possible file size) becomes quite large.

If you want files disappearing, try booting Mac OS 8.1 from an HFS+ volume with the shift key down. Anything with a non-ASCII char in the filename becomes nameless in the Finder window, and if you try to manipulate it in any way, it disappears.

Patrick · Apr 4, 2013, 10:31 PM

Would it be possible to find an ethernet card for the IIcx, or a SCSI to ethernet adapter? If you were to connect the two computers, I'd imagine it would be a simple matter of file sharing.

olePigeon · Apr 5, 2013, 11:51 AM

NuBUS ethernet cards can be found fairly cheap.

olePigeon · Apr 5, 2013, 11:53 AM

By the way, 68-Pin HDD + adapter may be the most cost effective way to get a new SCSI drive in your IIcx.