BlueSCSI V2 - mini build and quick test

[@CRG]

Jumper positions JP1 and JP2 would be used along side an external LED connected to that 3 pin header, the jumpers increase the brightness. Full details on the github, link in the description.

[@phlphl]

Whoah! Mid-week CRG video? What a pleasant surprise!

[@CRG]

A new idea, I can't promise them every week but there will be some mid week mini builds going forward.

[@phlphl]

@@CRG No worries, a forced schedule is a shortcut to lower quality anyway... Looking forward to the builds, might get inspired again like with the GBS build. I'll sit this one out, because I don't have any SCSI capable computer anymore, but who knows, maybe I'll use this as a justification for my next retro purchase!

[@UpLateGeek]

A short CRG video? I'm going to need a visit to the physiotherapist after watching that, because it feels like the retro computer video equivalent of whiplash!

[@CRG]

Maybe I need a disclaimer at the start 😂 but hopefully even you still enjoyed it.

[@UpLateGeek]

@@CRG It was the perfect video to watch during my own soldering session!

[@Tjuwantjutju]

Happy hello everyone! My siblings and I got a Commodore VIC-20 for Christmas in 1983. My favorite game was Raid on Fort Knox. 🎉

[@CRG]

Sounds like you had a great Christmas that year. I've not done much with my VIC-20 but should get more carts for it at least.

[@RETROMachines]

Congratulations CRG! This is an amazing video.

[@CRG]

Thank you, that is nice to hear.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Dood that is freaking awesome.

[@CRG]

Glad you enjoyed it, more mini buildings coming soon along with full videos too.

[@mk500]

I like the mini-build video concept! Very nice work building that BlueSCSI. I want to eventually build one also; so it’s great to have a preview.

[@CRG]

Thanks, got another mini build in the works and a few other similar ideas. The next one won't be released until after the next full video though. I've got a couple of BlueSCSI V1s but want to get a V2 for myself.

[@JamiesHackShack]

Nice build! I love the BlueSCSI stuff. That v2 definitely has a noticeable jump in speed. Enjoyed it!

[@CRG]

Thanks but its not for me, it's back with its owner in his A590 with 500+ but I will be getting one for myself, very impressed with it.

[@Stoobers]

Really enjoy your vids :)

[@CRG]

Thanks, as a small content creator it genuinely means a lot 🙂

[@kjellmesch8060]

I'm building one this weekend for my A500 :-)

[@CRG]

Enjoy it, its a great card.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Nice job. I like the concept so I'm looking forward for more of these. And now to add another thing on my "to buy eventually" list, that BlueSCSI. :)

[@CRG]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it, I've got the next one in the work already although it won't be released until after the next full video. The BlueSCSI is great, I've got the V1 but must get a V2 at some point.

[@drphilxr]

This is what I’m hoping my A590 w/ blueSCSI acts like when/if it ever returns from the Georgia (USA) repair guy! Thankyou for a quick look for us amigans with short(er) attention spans 😅

[@CRG]

It is a great option for the 590. I didn't put it in this video, its in the full A590 video, but getting the drive on the sd card is nothing more than dropping a WinUAE hardfile on the drive and label it HD0. Still working on the concept for these shorter video but glad to hear you enjoyed it.

[@drphilxr]

@@CRG as you must know 10Marc (Doug) on YT did a nice episode on the zuluSCSI and nice to know blueSCSI is also a WinUAE .HDF file (that you can rename- ?)

[@oldestgamer]

what kind of and where do you get the files to run on the BSCSI? I assume they are not the same as the what are on the card drives I have seen with the A1200 or are they regular files you load from a disk, is that right?

[@runcmd8851]

Thanks CRG ive been looking into one of these for my A2000 as i think the drive is slowly on its way out..

[@CRG]

Its a great option, if I can find a scsi card for my 2000 I'll absolutely be adding this myself.

[@DarkVain]

Scsi CD drives where the only thing for Amiga's until IDE was introduced in late models. Drivers not an issue when I was connecting drives any Scsi drive worked fine.

[@CRG]

Good point, I just need to find a suitable scsi card for my 2000 now 🤔

[@mikegravgaard340]

Look for something like an A2091 or GVP SCSI controller. If I recall the A2090 needed an additional ROM card to boot from controller. GVP SCSI controllers are possibly the best for A2000 however silly Ebay prices.

[@jacktheripper6716]

Wonder if this could be used in a 1200 in the 90s I had a scanner/cdrom hooked up this would work nicely

[@CRG]

Yeah I'm sure it would work although through the 16bit pcmcia port it might be a little slow.

[@fu1r4]

To my Amiga 500+ i bought a Sony SCSI CD-ROM and i payed £150 for it. This was around 1992-93.

[@CRG]

How did you have it hooked up to the 500? Was it via a 590 or something similar?

[@fu1r4]

@@CRG Yes, i used the external 25 pin connector on my SupraDrive.

[@heilong108]

what was the purpose of going with this vs using a passive CF to IDE adapter since that hard drive addon seems to support IDE as well

[@JeremyLevi]

The A590 doesn't actually support normal IDE (ATA), it only supports the 8-bit version, so called "XT-IDE" (XTA). (The connector looks the same but the pins that would normally be for data bits 8-15 on an IDE connector are just tied to ground instead.) It's not compatible with CF cards which all require a normal 16-bit IDE interface. Same goes for actual physical hard drives, only rare ones that are XT-IDE compatible will work with the "IDE" connector in there (look for an X at the end of the drive model number for example the Seagate ST351A/X [jumperable to ATA or XTA mode] or Western Digital 93028X [XTA only]), normal 16-bit IDE drives won't work at all. Compatibility aside, using the FastSCSI interface in there will be faster anyway since it's a full 16-bit interface with DMA support compared to the limited 8-bit non-DMA interface of the XT-IDE controller.

[@CRG]

Exactly what Jeremy said. Thanks both for watching and thanks Jeremy for the explanation.

[@rfxtuber]

@@JeremyLevi Jeremy, per chance whats the situation with regards to using Blusescsi2 via Blizzard 1230 IV (Phase 5) accelerator as i want to replace an old Quantum SCSI drive in an enclosure with BlueSCSI2, i would assume BlueSCSI2 would simply be a direct substitute for a SCSI drive.. are there any DMA issues in this context that you are aware of?

[@JeremyLevi]

@@rfxtuber I'm not an expert with the BlueSCSI specifically (I use a ZuluSCSI 2040 on my A500), but from everything I've seen it should just be a drop in replacement for that use case. If DMA worked correctly with the physical HDD in that setup it should work with the BlueSCSI as well.

[@rfxtuber]

@@JeremyLevi Nice one Jeremy, that is my current understanding... I'm a little lost regarding the variants and features of each of the cards out there but its looking like its between ZuluSCSI or BlueSCSI2 with BlueSCSI2 being the one to go for now as it seems to have ironed out bugs ect.. Thanks for impromptu comment.. Appreciate it...

[@MrFixiit]

certainly does support scsi cdroms i had a squirrel scsi cdrom in my a1200

[@CRG]

Yeah good point and bit of a face palm moment for me cause I've got a squirrel scsi in the drawer!

[@brunorbf]

I have an A500 with GVP Impact Series II HD8+ (with Guru-ROM V6.11 firmware) that has SCSI HDD and CD-ROM, so getting the CD-ROM to work should be no problem, as long has you use the proper controllers. That amiga also as a Derringer 030. If I disable the Derringer, the HDD speed more than triples, getting close to 3MB/s, by using only the GVP fast RAM. With the Derringer enabled (and the 32bit fast ram) the hdd speed drops to less than 1 MB/s.

[@JeremyLevi]

IIRC a lot of (all?) the external sidecar drives don't support DMA to 32 bit memory so that's probably what's happening with the Derringer 030, DMA is likely disabled when it tries to configure it to use the 32bit RAM. I have a vague recollection that you could get around that if you can set the RAM on the Derringer to *not* autoconfigure, instead adding it later with the "addmem" command in the startup sequence somewhere *after* the sidecar drive has already autoconfigured itself and set it's DMA region / buffers to the 16 bit FastRAM on the GVP. You'd have to check the Derringer's manual to see if it has a jumper to disable autoconfig for the RAM.

[@brunorbf]

@@JeremyLevi thanks. I've always suspected it was a dma issue. I'll try the derringer memory options to see if I can get around it. Since the side car has 8MB of ram, it should be no issue getting workbench to boot with extras. Thank you!

[@CRG]

Thanks both of you for the information.

[@JeremyLevi]

@@brunorbf The other thing that just wormed it's way out of my foggy memory is that CPU caches can cause issues with DMA. If you still can't get DMA to function correctly with your accelerator you might have to try disabling the cache(s). Not sure if the ROM code for the GVP sidecars have this issue or not, iirc cache flushing has to be written into the DMA code to get DMA to work with CPU caches. I can tell you for sure that it's not supported in the stock ROMs for the official Commodore DMAC based devices A590, A570, and A2090/91.

[@brunorbf]

​@@JeremyLevi Thanks. Maybe I will have some luck with it,since the sidecar uses a third party rom (I bought it on ebay, already like that), and because of that rom (Guru Rom), I can't mount the hdd inside the sidecar (it came without the mounting bracket, the rom his taller than the original). I ended using an AT PC case to place the HDD and CD-RW drives, and to power both the A500 and the side car.

[@evertonshorts9376]

Won't it present the CD ISO as a read-only hard drive?

[@CRG]

I don't believe so, as I understand it will show as an emulated cd drive but if I'm honest I'm not 100% sure but even if it is just presented as a hdd it would still at least let me use iso for reading data from.

[@cyberneticus7941]

Hi, does this work with GVP A530?

[@CRG]

I don't see why not, it just presents itself as a scsi drive so should work fine.

[@hackbuildrestore]

Yes SCSI CD on A2000 works fine, if you need a sCSI card for an A2000 give me a shout

[@CRG]

Thanks for letting me know. Very interested in a scsi card, can you drop me an e-mail with the details, [e-mail]

[@hackbuildrestore]

​@@CRGwill do 😊

[@hackbuildrestore]

​ email(s) sent, hopefully received ?

[@neozeed8139]

There are drivers for cd-rom's for the Amiga, but setting it up isn't fun. It's like amitcpip

[@CRG]

Drivers usually aren't too bad on the Amiga, its just finding the right one and dropping it into the right folder in workbench, more or less anyway.

[@dh2032]

now all we need is a A590 to plug it into?

[@CRG]

Yeah, that would be useful 😂

[@obsoletepowercorrupts]

Yes the Amiga 500 supports SCSI CDROM although, comparing custom drivers to Universal CD drivers, you'd need to check to see which _(driver)_ way it will work _(potentially both ways or just one way)._ The Amiga could plug a CD drive (sometimes squirrel) into the back port of the SCSI of an A590 (SCSI version) but also the A570 and also that was a CD drive itself. Kickstarts can be changed to make the CDROM boot like the CDTV. A game to load slowly _(to stress the system as a sort of test)_ is (by Virgin) _"Spirit Of Excalibur_" which loads slowly even from an A590. _"(and the sequel, Vengeance of Excalibur)"._ Even though A1200 can support CDROM via internal IDE PATA, the SCSI (e.g. by PCMCIA adaptor) CDROM route can be done too. My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.

[@CRG]

Yeah after making the video it dawned as obvious because I've got a squirrel scsi and cd drive for my 1200. Although I'm not sure if the A2000 scsi cards would support it, I'll need to do some research on that.

[@obsoletepowercorrupts]

@@CRG The logic would be that the interface of (parallel) SCSI either fits or doesn't but the software compatibility is unlikely to be restricted as 32bit versus 16Bit of the PCMCIA converts the bus to 16Bit anyway. Beyond that it is Kickstart and Workbench versions which can be resolved if even need to be changed. The Akiko on the CD32 helped handle the CD but the A1200 would likely be a case of just software. See if your SCSI CD drive is supported by a sampler (e.g. an AKAI or whatever) if you have lost documentation or need a different 'angle' as a thought process. As an aside, the Vampire uses a PATA IDE if so desired via Universal CD drivers. It would stand to reason that a A2000 SCSI card expects an HDD as an alternative drive such that it works with a video toaster setup, thereby implying a calendar date range or usage (approximately) from back in the day (indicating what other systems would have used it). Mike's Vintage Tech (of MVTComputers) might have experience on that A1200 A2000 hardware combo. My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.