Zulu SCSI Device emulator

E316: Presenting the Zulu SCSI device emulator for ANY computer with a SCSI bus. what is it, how does it differ from other solutions and is it worth the 60usd it costs? I think it is better than the SCSI2SD/BlueSCSI/RASCSI because it is the combination of ALL of them!!!
Only 60$$$. get yours today!
zuluscsi.com
sections:
0:00 intro and comparison to the scsi2sd
1:10: old way of setting up scsi2sd and comparison to ZULU
3:15 Zulu setup with winuae
5:10 setup example using Amiga 3000T
10:40 mounting drive in Winuae for easier install
16:00 uncut install and boot in 3000T after winuae build
17:00 final thoughts comparison links and pricing
21:50 Credits and Moana sings at the flag
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[@RavenWolfRetroTech]

Perfect timing Chris, thanks! My BlueSCSI was not playing nice with the Amigas and I wanted something a bit less expensive... Ordered!

[@HoldandModify]

This is a much better video than mine. I’m living up to my opening catch phrase. :)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Hahaha

[@TheBizzyBScience]

This looks cool, I am going to test this on my hardware sampler

[@ZuluSCSI]

If you use a card that explicitly says it supports SDHC, or SDXC, its successor, you shouldn't have any problems. In our testing, we've determined that there's no good way to detect an SD card that uses SD version 1.1 or lower, when used with a ZuluSCSI V1.1 The issue with SD card compatibility is at the silicon level itself. According to the GigaDevice GD32F20x User Manual (not the datasheet), the silicon only supports SD Memory Cards that are SDHC-compliant, or above. The the manufacturer's User Manual has this to say: "Full support for SD Memory Card Specifications Version 2.0" (marketed as SDHC). Version 2.0 of the SD card specification was originally released in 2006. At a protocol level, ZuluSCSI V1.1 uses a high-speed SD protocol to communicate between the SD card and the microcontroller. This is necessary to enable speeds above ~2.5 Megabytes/sec. ZuluSCSI Mini. Thanks for the review!

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Sorry i depleted your stock. Or not. Lol

[@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration We just got another batch in, we have plenty of stock, and have updated our inventory count :)

[@cocoe68]

I am interested to get one but link didn't shows me if available, could you please advice when more units become available again? Thanks

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@cocoe68 it does, you just didnt watch it, i said heres the site, you can get reseller info off of it, in the top right is the resellers, here is a link zuluscsi.com/wheretobuy/

[@boydpukalo8980]

I bought a pair of these ZuluSCSI drives for my AA3000+ & A4000TX boards. Pretty cool device. Nice to see big boxes getting some love.

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Thanks for the tutorial. I have one of these on order for my trash-picked A2000 with failed scsi drive, and this is going to come in handy!

[@stephenbruce8320]

Thanks for showing this. I have a few versions of those SCSI2SD Cards but this one look easier to setup so I ordered one to play with.

[@jase1438]

Awesome work as always Chris. Much appreciated.

[@HaggisAhoy]

Holy Canoli, you're on fire. 2 videos on the same day 👍👍👍

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

3. One on patreon too

[@kitkatv3]

Enjoyed the fishing lesson. Great info. Thanks for sharing with us.

[@TheNovum]

Nice, id like to see a performance test. I guess its enough for my 1990s beasts 😝

[@hessex1899]

Thank you for doing this video. I am looking to buy one of these for my NeXT.

[@mikerhodes9198]

Another great video. Thanks.

[@jediknight2350]

your the john wayne of amiga i learnt a lot many thanks.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

well thanks pilgrim...

[@-H3li03-]

Hi Chris, thanks for sharing! I'm waiting for mine to be delivered, bought a week ago! still waiting... Btw Would be very nice to get another one and install that db25, put everything on a cool enclosure to make a nice external drive for the amiga to take stuff around! Keep up the good work!

[@ericjohnson6105]

This thing looks like the bee's knees. I'm having one come in as watching these lead me to get the Amiga out of the closet and back onto a table.

[@VK2FVAX]

+1 upvote purely for Mona.

[@rrenfrow5071]

Just ordered mine.

[@angelog.spicolaiii8021]

Boy am I glad these things exist keeps the SCSCI (port) on my K2kSv.3 a useful+viable utility; practically makes SMP-K non- volatile¡ & still argueably the best hardware sampler ever made thanx folks [P.S.have ZuluSCSImini quite auh witchdoctor's magical little black box sureuhly¡]

[@marcroulleau9510]

Thank you !

[@bobrandale4864]

16:10 - static bag; that's what I have my SCSI2SD card in, sitting vertically, in my A2000!

[@corty1980]

Great video as always Chris, I do have the SCSI2SD for my Amiga2000 but agree with you on the Zulu SCSI being a better solution. Got a question for you that you could perhaps answer. I 'am currenting doing the ReAmiga board and missing the Vidiot circuit for it. I do have the Individual Computers ScanDoubler and the RGB2HDMI, do I still need the Vidiot circuit? posted this question on an Amiga Forum and was told that I don't, just wanting to confirm with the Amiga Yoda.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

yes as it is what generates RGB... it takes the digital signal and outputs it to analog. they are only 15$ USD you can get them here...amigaonthelake.com/video-hybrid-vidiot-a500-1000-2000/

[@keyboard_g]

Updooting for the algorithm.

[@keithruhl3545]

I missed that part where you create a second partition.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Maybe the AMIGA version of UNIX System V might be better than AMIGA KICKSTART 3.2

[@AWalYT]

I guess it was only a matter of time before something else was released that was faster and cheaper.

[@uberdude2555]

I just ordered mine, love the simplicity how you can configure everything within WinUAE and switch between multiple images with such ease. Do you know if it's possible to mix this card with real hardware, so if I had a SCSI RW-CD drive in my A4000T, or a real HD could I still use it?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

I have multiple images on my own card Macintosh PC and Amiga they are just devices presented to the SCSI bus I have a SCSI cd ROM on my tower and it works with this just fine

[@matthewmoebes2443]

Thanks for adding to my current credit card bill, Chris. It is kind of sus that there are no transfer speeds listed on the website. Could you do speed test on a 3000? I'm guessing it will do scsi2sd 5 speeds but here's hoping for v6 speeds..

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Its like 2-2.5. If i had a z3 scsi controller or a cpu based it would be faster. The 3000 is about 2-2.5.

[@rideon41]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Hmm, my A3000 with SCSI2SD 5.2 was 1 speed, while now with ver 6 it is 1.9. Tempting to try Zulu if it's an honest 2.5 or close...

[@kingcognito]

As said, great timing! :) I just bought a 1200 w/ Blizzard 060/PPC + SCSI and was thinking of replacing it’s old SCSI drives with something. When it comes to transfer speeds, I assume Amiga is going to be the bottleneck even with that Blizzard kit and SD card speeds don’t really matter - am I right?

[@chainq68k]

The Blizzard SCSI ain't going to be the bottleneck. That thing can pump 10MB/sec under best conditions, but even under "just defaults" settings in SYNC mode, it can do 6-8MB/sec easily. Although I have no experience with ZuluSCSI, the SCSI2SD v5 it seems to be based on only supports up to 2.5MB/sec tops, and around 1.5-2MB/sec under real world conditions with good controllers, and it only supports async mode. So if the ZuluSCSI is as fast as a SCSI2SD v5, it _will_ be the limiting factor on your Blizzard PPC SCSI. I had to get a SCSI2SD v6 for my Blizzard 2060 SCSI, v5 was simply too slow, much slower than real disks. Even the v6 is slightly slower in raw throughput than my old Seagate Barracuda 20GB SCSI disk was, but it compensates that with zero seek times and zero noise, of course.

[@kingcognito]

@@chainq68k Interesting, thanks for the info! I had no idea that the device itself would be that slow - I was thinking more if f.ex. going from high speed SD card to UHS-I would make a difference. Well, like you said, those seek times should help and filesizes on Amiga are usually tiny anyway.

[@chainq68k]

@@kingcognito The bottleneck is the SCSI bus itself, and the ability to drive it in various modes, not the SD card. Just because it's SCSI, it's not automatically faster, it's still 30+ years old tech... Those seek times help indeed, but one can really feel the difference (and measure it even), on a more heavy RTG/etc colorful Amiga desktop. I mean, it's not unusable for sure, Amiga runs OK even from a PIO0 IDE port, that is even slower, plus a CPU hog, but this card surely won't let that SCSI controller live up to its potential. Anyway, whatever floats the boat. I'd probably also pick a cheap and 100% silent SD card, even if it's slower, over some noisy old SCSI hard drives for "everyday use". (But I'd still pick a SCSI2SD v6 _from the currently existing solutions_ for a BPPC SCSI.)

[@IntenseGrid]

@@chainq68k Don't forget size, power and heat as well. Those old Barracudas performed well in their day, but they were big, noisy and hot.

[@fditty276]

dude get a new chair (creaky) very interesting channel tho LOL

[@BerndFelsche]

There is only one Chris.

[@cullmaster7361]

Today I also learnt that Chris uploads more than 1 video today 👍🏻😉 I know “Q” over on Hold and Modify covered this off on his channel, but to confirm. The SD card needs to be windows formatted as Ex-FAT for cards bigger than 32GB? The SCSI2SD Ver 6 can reach speeds up to 10Mb/sec. The Zulu matches the speed? Cheers! 👍🏻🙏🏻

[@HoldandModify]

Yes exFAT if you need larger than 32GB partitions and or larger than 4,096mb per single file. I’ve seen speed lately maxing out around 2.2mb a/s.

[@matthewmoebes2443]

Are you sure that speed is not limited by your scsi bus? You probably know, but the Amiga 3000 scsi is about 4 times faster than most other Amiga scsi solutions..

[@HoldandModify]

@@matthewmoebes2443 it totally could. Just reporting what I’ve seen. I know the 3000 and GVP controllers aren’t the fastest out there. :)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Soeed is limited by your scsi bus. A zorro3 would rock it

[@matthewmoebes2443]

Actually the 3000D (don't know about the tower) had one of the fastest scsi buses ever put on a motherboard.

[@drphilxr]

Mutiboot on startup between 1.3/2.05/3.1 would be cool- isn't this easier with 2 mouse salute on startup rather than moving HD files into subfolders? Speaking of multi-OS boot- assuming theres a ROM switcher on board- is there a software app that does this ? (not relokick?)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Amigakit sells a triple rom Booter. But why?

[@drphilxr]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration pistorm could multiboot- (y? Because nostalgia apps don’t play nice with newer roms)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@drphilxr pistorm can if you set it up per drive per boot. Otherwise too much a pita to bother with. My fix is to have multiple amigas. Then you deck each one out for that os and rock on

[@gjheydon]

Could you load the 3.2 iso on the sd card and mount it like a CD-ROM?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Why not

[@pauledwards2817]

A very nice product but worries me a lot that it will overshadow the scsi to SD which has better support for odd devices, wonder about LUNS, synchronous transfers and so forth that can be important to picky things such as samplers or unix workstations. For most people it will be such a tempting product. Certainly seems faster than RaSCSI.

[@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith]

Paul, ZuluSCSI wouldn't exist without SCSI2SD. The core SCSI command handling library in ZuluSCSI's code is ported directly from SCSI2SD V6's codebase. The LUN support is something we haven't actively tested, but it might work. ZuluSCSI V1.1 supports synchronous transfers, and we've observed real-world throughput of upwards of seven megabytes per second, when used with a SCSI controller that can negotiate synchronous 10MByte/sec speeds. So, while it's not quite as fast as V6, ZuluSCSI has a much better price:performance ratio, for about the same price as SCSI2SD V5

[@pauledwards2817]

@@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith I do agree I would have more V6 boards but for the price being so Zulu SCSI is an excellent option and will overshadow the V6. Just would not like the v6 to just disappear from the market as for 99% of users the Zulu is a clear winner for price and ease. As for speed my recollection is that the Amiga 3000 with synchronous transfers enabled in the nvram could handle more than most devices other than the V6 and Zulu. Nothing I keep around now gets over more than 3.5MB/s

[@ChrisThomas-lt8jd]

Hey, Im trying to use WinUAE, but on my Windows 10, 4k display, the GUI is pretty unusable as its crushed. Does anyone know how to fix this? Seems WinUAE is at LEAST useful for making these HD files, but I really cant use the UI.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

? lower your resolution? the Amiga video is native 320x240, in high res it was barely 640x400 interlaced. remember this is 1990's tech. you can click the 2X button at the top to get double display or drag the display larger in the corners like any windows window resize.

[@ChrisThomas-lt8jd]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration No, I mean the UAE config window, not the emulated Amiga window. The config window cannot be resized, and has no config I can find to fix the issue. I have dual monitors, with the main one being 4K, with 150% font resizing, to make it usable. I have tried chaning the physical monitors rez to HD, but it was not a fix, and worse appeared as a window in the middle of the 4k screen

[@bigd5090]

Chris, can you use SCSI2SD V6 formatted SD cards in the ZuluSCSi? From the latest firmware log... Firmware 1.0.5: "changes in v1.0.5: Added EXPERIMENTAL raw pass-through (8a47a01) mode (without FAT filesystem), commit . If no image files are detected on the SD card, the whole SD card is presented as a single SCSI drive, the size of which will be the entirety of the SD card. Raw pass-through can also be manually specified in config file." ...it may be possible? What do you think?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

sd card is sd card, the difference is the zulu uses HDF/HDA hard disk files, as the scsi2sd partitions the actual card itself.

[@bigd5090]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration So a SD card previously in use with the SCSI2SD V6 wouldn't be usable "off the bat" with the ZuluSCSI card then?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@@bigd5090 no well the card itself yes, but the zulu uses hard disk files instead of partitioning the card, the benefit is i can have multiple systems on one card simply through a file rename to what is presented.

[@bigd5090]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration ...but if I've already backed my old failing SCSI HD to an SD card on my current SCSI2SD unit but will want to continue with a 2 drive system when my hard drive dies then... I guess the ZuluSCSI can't read my backup SD card?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Just mount your scsi2sd in winuae (run as admin) and add it to a hard drive file you make and your converted. Follow my naming steps for the file and your good it is a lot easier to copy a single file and rebuild an entire system than on an scsi2sd

[@amurolee6762]

Does zuluscsi support cd audio ?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

there are no audio outs. only scsi devices. the RAScsi on the other hand does all sorts of things, from nics to drives to network cards and all, the Zulu is a combination of the simplicity of all of those from the RA to the SCSI2SD and BlUE,

[@AnilKumar-lt4uk]

How change SCSI id of Zulu card

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

in its config file, but i think it may be set to 7 Default like most scsi controllers. set id of each file by adding the 0 1 2 etc to its name as i stated in the video

[@jonathanwickett9118]

If I connect it via a GVP A4008 card on the A4000, will I need to use the GVP software?

[@cullmaster7361]

Yes. “Q” over on the Hold and Modify Channel (Sorry Chris 😉) covers this off on his channel.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

No worries

[@jdryyz]

definitos = Spanish for definitions. :D

[@jeejeeverbove4301]

What's the drive speed like on the Amiga's side?

[@HoldandModify]

I’ve seen a max of 2.2mb a/s on real Amigas.

[@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith]

@@HoldandModify That sounds like you're running up against the limitations of the SCSI bus/controller, as ZuluSCSI can easily push 3.3+ MBytes/sec in asynchronous mode, and 5-7 in synchronous mode. The speed of the CPU matters quite a lot, too, particularly when you're using a mediocre SCSI controller that doesn't do DMA properly, or support it at all. Most Zorro/sidecar-based SCSI controllers for the Amiga were quite mediocre, and just designed to be cheap to manufacture to make a quick buck. There are so many different factors at play, when you start peeling the onion.

[@HoldandModify]

@@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith yup, I got the Zulu to hit 8.8mb a/s when connected as an HDD in WinUAE via my Adaptec card

[@IntenseGrid]

What about performance. The scsi2sd single chip version would only do about 2MB/sec because it would only do async scsi, and the same with RaSCSI. If this will sync up to 10MHz or 20MHz, that would be great!

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

it depends on the connecting computers scsi bus. it is a scsi1/2 device so the scsi bus of the computer is the limiting factor, as your SD card speed will be greater than what they could do back in the day.

[@IntenseGrid]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I very much doubt that. The scsi2sd limiting factor was the device itself, not the SDCard, because it wouldn't do syncronous transfers. On an SGI Indy, for instance, it will drive the buss up to 9MB/s without a problem, but the scsi2sd wouldn't keep up with a 2GB hard drive to transfer big files.

[@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith]

@@IntenseGrid The bottleneck with SCSI2SD V5 is actually the speed of the SPI implementation inside the Cypress PSoC, which is limited to ~2.5MBytes/sec, best-case-scenario. Describing the SCSI2SD as "not keeping up" when it's limitations are clearly advertised, and always have been, comes across as ...unnecessarily obtuse.

[@IntenseGrid]

@@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith What I said is fact. SCSI2SD will not keep up with a lowly SGI Indy, and won't do 10MHz synchronous. You may be correct as why the scsi2sd device doesn't keep up, but the fact remains. As far as "obtuse", I explained the facts quite clearly. Maybe I offended you, triggering you to insult me for stating facts as to why I don't buy or recommend SCSI2SD for anything as fast as an SGI Indy?

[@IntenseGrid]

@@AlexPerezLyricalWordsmith I looked you up as you seem "invested" in scsi2sd to insult me for stating facts. Not a good business move for Inertial Computing, IMHO. Maybe instead you could test out the ZULU for yourself and sell that instead or in addition to scsi2sd? Maybe you could look into RaSCSI, which is cheaper if you already have a Raspberry Pi 3 of some flavor, or can find a Pi Zero 2 W to put it on, which would be a cheaper 2 board solution? I've not tested it, but at least it is typically not as expensive even if you include a Pi 02w. I personally love the PiSTORM and don't mind paying $80 for it because it eliminates the need for SCSI in the Amiga (at least for my situation), and adds a whole lot of other features, like 30x as fast processor and lots of memory. As such, even though I am a noob, and not an expert, I would not recommend scsi2sd or even RASCSI when hard drive emulation on the PiSTORM will do. Good day sir!

[@theundertaker8273]

Hello, how fast it is? Rascsi is just about 1meg/s

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

depends on the system, on my warpengine 040 amiga i get 6-9mbs, on the stock amiga scsi its usually 1-3 but again it depends on the system.

[@theundertaker8273]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration nice, on 50mhz 060 cpu in a3000 I have just 1 Meg anyway

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

is a limitation of the built-in SCSI device

[@theundertaker8273]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I heard people getting 3 Meg on default scsi controller in a3000

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Hmm. Not me and i have two towers and a desktop

[@ms-ex8em]

do u know about winuae? how do i run pc-task 4.4 on winuae ? how do i create a hard disc file on pc-task? thanks...................

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

well thats a dish full , probably a video in its self.

[@ms-ex8em]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration okay thanks what do you mean a dish full of?? thanks

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

A dish full as in a full plate,