*BSD News Article 38861


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From: wes@indirect.com (Barnacle Wes)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Adaptec 1542CF SCSI
Message-ID: <D07Epo.Gvu@indirect.com>
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Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 22:05:48 GMT
References: <3b2u2e$27u@scoob.xap.com> <Roy-2711942134250001@adept.cts.com> <9412012201.35@rmkhome.com> <3bng94$iaf@Mars.mcs.com>
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Christopher Hilton (chilton@MCS.COM) wrote:
: I repeat: The early 1542C and CF's had really cheesy SCSI linde
: drivers (hardware) and as a result are really affected by cable length
: and type. I don't have the SCSI spec in from of me anymoe (not my job
: anymore) But I seem to remember the spec saying something like 3
: meters is the maximum cable length. Stick with that. If you're stuck
: in the English system of measurement 3 meters == 9' 10.11" or closer to
: 10' then 9'. Rick, your cable is probably within spec.

Connector quality, cable quality, termination, and the care with
which the whole mess was assembled affect this also.  At my previous
employer, our tape production machine was a SPARCstation-1 with
two disk drives and three tape drives (QIC-150, DAT, & 8MM), all
*external*, and in separate cases.  Quite a nightmare.

If your situation is anything like this, you might want to consider
buying a PC tower-style case for $35 or so and putting all of your
external SCSI devices in the one case.  One or two external connectors
and a single internal ribbon cable should suffice to connect them
all together, and one external cable to the CPU will cut down on
the number of connections in the chain.  It also makes it easier
to power up all of your external devices, but make sure the power
supply can handle the start-up surge of all your devices, or set
them for power-on startup delay.


	Wes Peters