Emax

No idea- are there any additional jumpers on the NOMAI inside or out????
Glad I could help with the TERM issue though.

Regards,
Ted



On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 9:01 AM, thenewyorkcowboy <
thenewyorkcowboy@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hey Ted,
>
> Well they say writing is therapeutic and after writing that dissertation I
> figured I had better recheck what I thought all the way down the cables.
>
> I did find that I had the ZIP insider SCSI termination jumper on and the ID
> set to 5, so I changed this arrangement to OFF and ID 6 and then at that
> point the entire chain was visible to the EMAX II. So my present arrangement
> is:
>
> EMAXII ----Conner (ID#1) ----- ZIP INSIDER (ID#6) ----- NOMAI 750 MCD
> (ID#5) ----- ACTIVE TERM.
>
> In my experience I have always thought that any terminator that has an LED
> is Active and those that don't have no LED. I only have one terminator each
> that actually 'state' on the terminator that they are active or passive, and
> they both have the LED/NO LED respectively. The others simply either have an
> LED or don't, and I have a couple that are marked TERMINATOR, and they are
> actually "pass through" meaning I can put them on the Centronics connector
> and still put a cable on the other end....interesting..
>
> So at this point I was more confident that the EMAXII at least had no ID
> errors, and I went ahead and successfully formatted 5 ZIP100 cartridges as
> well as copied the software to them from the Conner.
>
> But even in this arrangement now, the EMAXII does not fail in recognizing
> the NOMAI at any time as it did before but it will still give me the message
> SCSI: HARDWARE ERROR upon trying to format the NOMAI cartridges.
>
> I searched high and low on the internet and found that the NOMAI drives are
> SCSI-2, and also found this reference on the Adaptec site:
>
>
> http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/scsi/2930/AHA-2930CU/use_prod/scsi_terms.htm
>
> Which is leading me to believe now that the ZILOG Z0538001PSC SCSI chip
> inside the EMAXII is incapable of either A: telling the NOMAI drive to 'step
> down' to SCSI-1 speeds in timing as a normal PCI controller could in a
> computer, or that B: the NOMAI drive is NOT backwards compatible with SCSI-1
> controllers at all and has all of its timings fixed so that the data
> handshakes and such are 'too fast' for the EMAXII to assimilate as with all
> the formatting I've done, the EMAXII always displays 'verifying' which would
> indicate that during formatting there is some CRC going on or similar that
> is being missed by the timing in the Zilog chip as being 'too fast', similar
> to why so many CD-ROM drives do not work with the EMAXII because they feed
> data at above the data rate of the EMAXII or have been designed for SCSI-2
> timings (most known compatible CDROMS are 1x or 2x speed) even though they
> have a 50pin connector. This is another mini project of mine as I have an
> old SCSI 2x CDROM that uses the caddy made by TOSHIBA, but I've never gotten
> the EMAXII to even identify the drive. Maybe I'll try some more with my 'new
> knowledge'.
>
> Anyone know any way of 'slowing down' something designed for SCSI-2 specs
> to SCSI-1 timings, besides a 25 foot cable?
>
>
> --- In emax@yahoogroups.com <emax%40yahoogroups.com>, Ted Summers <djtbs1@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > With the type of configuration you have, have you:
> > checked for termination jumpers on the drives?
> >
> > Since you are using a terminator (w/green light), no drives should
> > have termination.
> > It should go:
> > emax ----- conner (id#) ---- next SCSI ID #--- TERM.
> >
> > But if term power is on for any of the drives it will mess up the chain.
> > also- is that an active or passive terminator?
> > how long are the cables?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ted
> >
> > On Oct 27, 2009, at 1:08 PM, thenewyorkcowboy wrote:
> >
> > Greetings All,
> >
> > I have an EMAX II 4mb (2212) with the original factory installed
> > external SCSI connector (black and to the rear and left of the volume
> > slider.) I am using OS 2.14 and the floppy works fine. I also have an
> > external SCSI Conner drive CP-30540 'hard set' to SCSI 1 and actively
> > terminated with a terminator that has the green light on it when
> > working properly. I have been able to format and use this Conner drive
> > fine without ever any problems.
> >
> > My problem is every other device I own. I have two different SCSI Zip
> > Drives (1 external with the ID 5/6 switch, and 1 internal set to ID 5
> > mounted in a dual external case with the Conner drive, and a pretty
> > hefty power supply.) I just purchased an external SCSI NOMAI 750.C and
> > two 540mb cartridges, this device has the 25pin SCSI cable exactly
> > equal to the EMAX II connector. It can also be set to ID 1 or 5. I
> > also have 4 different 25-25 cables, as well as probably a dozen
> > 25-50cn cables I have tried out on all the various setups. I also have
> > several different 50pin SCSI CD Roms I have tried as well with a EMXP
> > formatted CD. Just throwing this info in as I can be certain it is NOT
> > the connecting cable in any fashion, as I've tried like 10 different
> > cables in all various arrangements and I am frustrated.
> >
> > I power up the external devices and wait until they go through their
> > initialization before I turn on the Emax II. Here's my problem:
> >
> > ONLY SPORADICALLY will the Emax II ever identify the 'type' of drive I
> > am using, such as IOMEGA ZIP 100, and NOMAI 750 MCD. USUALLY the Emax
> > II displays SCSI # NOT FOUND, and occasionally as well will display
> > NOT EMAXII DRIVE.
> >
> > On the rare times I can get the drive to be at least 'named', I go
> > ahead and try to FORMAT it and have even tried to simply COPY SOFTWARE
> > to the drive as I read in other literature (EII, EIII) that ZIP drives
> > require a special way of 'formatting' by just copying over the
> > software. In short I have tried everything I know and even the
> > diagnostics (3629) to find out what is going on with these drives but
> > no joy. I ALWAYS GET "SCSI HARDWARE ERROR" flashing along with the
> > ENTER light flashing.
> >
> > Basically the Conner works fine but my Emax II does not like any other
> > device I own, no matter how I hook it up, select the ID, or do
> > anything with them, and I know that many combinations of hardware
> > cannot be 'bad' to give "SCSI HARDWARE ERROR" all the time.
> >
> > My 'only' thought on this matter is that the ZIP cartridges and the
> > NOMAI cartridges since they are formatted to MAC/PC respectively among
> > them have some kind of file system error that will not allow the EMAX
> > II to do it's format job on them.
> >
> > If I couldn't get the Conner to work either I would swear it is
> > definitely something wrong inside the EMAX II like the SCSI CHIP, but
> > the fact that the Conner works fine but nothing else does is what is
> > throwing me. Any help out there?
> >
> > Kirk
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>  
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]