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SCSI2SD help

Roe

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Messages
240
Location
Regina, Canada
I'm trying to connect a SCSI2SD card to my pdp11/83 with no success whatever. It shows up on the CQD220a as a drive, but any attempt to access it just locks up permanently. It's running the 3.2 software, and I'm trying anything to update to 3.5.

Does anyone have an email contact or other info for assistance on the SCSI2SD board? I have become very frustrated with all attempts to update the firmware on my 3.2 unit. Linux reports an error 0 failure using bootloaderhost, and I even went so far as to try windows, which complains about a missing libgcc_s_sjsj file.

I have scoured both the user manual and all the codesrc stuff for a contact, perhaps I'm going blind in my old age :)

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Roe,

Did you see Matlock's postings about the SCSI2SD back in June? Check his post for 6/10/14 for the steps he took to get RSX11M+ loaded.

Jack

P.S. Is there someway to link directly to another post in the forum?
 
SCSI2SD on PDP-11/83

SCSI2SD on PDP-11/83

I'm trying to connect a SCSI2SD card to my pdp11/83 with no success whatever. It shows up on the CQD220a as a drive, but any attempt to access it just locks up permanently. It's running the 3.2 software, and I'm trying anything to update to 3.5.

Does anyone have an email contact or other info for assistance on the SCSI2SD board? I have become very frustrated with all attempts to update the firmware on my 3.2 unit. Linux reports an error 0 failure using bootloaderhost, and I even went so far as to try windows, which complains about a missing libgcc_s_sjsj file.

I have scoured both the user manual and all the codesrc stuff for a contact, perhaps I'm going blind in my old age :)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Roe,
I'm not sure what is causing your problem in updating the firmware. I mostly use Ubuntu for Simh work, but under VMware on an iMac. When I updated the SCSI2SD firware from 3.2 to 3.4 I went ahead and did it on directly the iMac (Mac OSX 10.7.5) using its USB port with the software from the
http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD site.

I have had luck reaching Michael.McMaster at his gmail.com address and getting replies from him.

I have not yet tried the 3.5 software but Michael McMaster told me in an email that it did I/O about 3 times faster than the earlier version. I have bought a second card and plan to update it to 3.5 and compare the two cards performance, but I am having to create a longer SCSI cable and am trying to find 3 feet of 50 conductor ribbon cable and some IDE connectors as the SCSI cable that came with my UC07 Emulex card is a bit short for two cards.

One thing that I do think is important at least for the UC07 is to size the SD card (with the SCSI2SD utility) to match the disk image size that you've loaded on the sd card. GSlick posted a link to the posts I made about the update and sizing procedures.

Also, after I did the initial work with the 11/73 and since then I put a 11/83 card in with 4MB of PMI memory and it works fine with the 11/83. I did have the old PDP-11/83 do its own RSX11M+ V4.6 sysgen with the disk caching turned on and it was reasonably fast. With the second card I want to determine what the upper limits to disk size are as V4.6 can handle up to a couple GB as can the UC07.

With the virtual disk capabilities of RSX11M+ V4.6 to work with smaller disk images and DECnet working good with Simh V4.0 (with the XQ thottle) to move .dsk files, it is a pretty nice environment.

Good Luck,
Mark Matlock
 
Regarding Matlocks success, yes, in fact I'm trying to follow his steps. As I mentioned, I can't get step one, updating the firmware, to work.
 
Try flashing V3.4 firmware on your SCSI2SD

Try flashing V3.4 firmware on your SCSI2SD

Thanks, that's very useful. I've sent a message, let's see what happens.

Roe,
I got my second SCSI2SD card out tonight and tried to update it to the V3.5 firmware (using the iMac). The firmware update seemed to go fine:

$ sudo ./bootloaderhost SCSI2SD-V3.cyacd
PSoC 3/5LP USB HID Bootloader Host
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

Waiting for device connection
Connect USB cable to the bus-powered device now, or otherwise reset the device.
Device Found
type: 4b4 b71d
path: USB_04b4_b71d_fa120000

Board: 3.5" SCSI2SD (green)
Revision: V3.0
Firmware Silicon ID: 2e133069

Starting firmware upload: SCSI2SD-V3.cyacd
.................................................................................................Firmware upload complete.

but when I then tried to configure the card I got:

$ ./scsi2sd-config
SCSI2SD Configuration Utility.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

USB device parameters
Vendor ID: 0x04B4
Product ID: 0x1337
Device Found
Firmware Version: Unknown (3.0 - 3.4)
Segmentation fault: 11

Is this the error you are seeing?

So I tried flashing the firmware back to V3.4 and that seemed to go fine. (See Below) I suggest you try flashing firmware V3.4 if you haven't tried that yet.
I have not swapped this card with the other one and ultimately am waiting for some ribbon cable and IDE connectors to make a new SCSI cable to have both drives installed.

Good luck,
Matlock

$ sudo ./bootloaderhost SCSI2SD.cyacd
Password:
PSoC 3/5LP USB HID Bootloader Host
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

USB device parameters
Vendor ID: 0x04B4
Product ID: 0xB71D
Waiting for device connection
Connect USB cable to the bus-powered device now, or otherwise reset the device.
Device Found
type: 04b4 b71d
path: USB_04b4_b71d_fa120000
serial_number: 0001
Manufacturer: Cypress Semiconductor
Product: PSoC3 Bootloader
Release: 3.5" SCSI2SD

Starting firmware upload: SCSI2SD.cyacd
Programmed flash array 0, row 35
Programmed flash array 0, row 36
Programmed flash array 0, row 37
Programmed flash array 0, row 38
....
Programmed flash array 0, row 120
Programmed flash array 0, row 121
Programmed flash array 1, row 255
Firmware update complete
$ ./scsi2sd-config
SCSI2SD Configuration Utility.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

USB device parameters
Vendor ID: 0x04B4
Product ID: 0x1337
USB Device Found
type: 04b4 1337
path: USB_04b4_1337_fa120000
serial_number: 1234
Manufacturer: codesrc.com
Product: SCSI2SD

--id={0-7} SCSI device ID.

--parity Check the SCSI parity signal, and reject data where
the parity is bad.

--no-parity Don't check the SCSI parity signal.
This is required for SCSI host controllers that do not provide
parity.

--attention Respond with a Unit Attention status on device reset.
Some systems will fail on this response, even though it is
required by the SCSI-2 standard.

--no-attention Disable Unit Attention responses.

--blocks={0-4294967295}
Set a limit to the reported device size.
The size of each block/sector is set by the --sector parameter.
The reported size will be the lower of this value and the SD
card size. 0 disables the limit.
The maximum possible size is 2TB.

--sector={64-8192}
Set the bytes-per-sector. Normally 512 bytes.
Can also be set with a SCSI MODE SELECT command.

--apple Set the vendor, product ID and revision fields to simulate an
apple-suppled disk. Provides support for the Apple Drive Setup
utility.

--vendor={vendor} Sets the reported device vendor. Up to 8 characters.

--prod-id={prod-id} Sets the reported product ID. Up to 16 characters.

--rev={revision} Sets the reported device revision. Up to 4 characters.



The current configuration settings are displayed if no options are supplied

$ ./scsi2sd-config --id=1
SCSI2SD Configuration Utility.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

USB device parameters
Vendor ID: 0x04B4
Product ID: 0x1337
USB Device Found
type: 04b4 1337
path: USB_04b4_1337_fa120000
serial_number: 1234
Manufacturer: codesrc.com
Product: SCSI2SD

Saving configuration... Done.

Current Device Settings:
SCSI ID: 1
Vendor: " codesrc"
Product ID: " SCSI2SD"
Revision: " 3.4"

Parity Checking: enabled
Unit Attention Condition: enabled
Bytes per sector: 512
Maximum Size: Unlimited
$ ./scsi2sd-config --blocks=4194303
SCSI2SD Configuration Utility.
Copyright (C) 2013 Michael McMaster <michael@codesrc.com>

USB device parameters
Vendor ID: 0x04B4
Product ID: 0x1337
USB Device Found
type: 04b4 1337
path: USB_04b4_1337_fa120000
serial_number: 1234
Manufacturer: codesrc.com
Product: SCSI2SD

Saving configuration... Done.

Current Device Settings:
SCSI ID: 1
Vendor: " codesrc"
Product ID: " SCSI2SD"
Revision: " 3.4"

Parity Checking: enabled
Unit Attention Condition: enabled
Bytes per sector: 512
Maximum Size: 2.00GB (4194303 sectors)
 
SUCCESS! And I have to say that Michael McMaster does fantastic work very quickly. He released a new version earlier today (3.5.1), and my pdp11/83 is now running RT-11 very nicely indeed. I haven't tested the 3.5.1 Linux binary configuration and firmware upload utilities yet, but the windows versions work perfectly.

As far as speed goes, RT-11 seems very snappy. I'm going to install 2.11 bsd and run kernel rebuild timing comparisons against a fairly fast SCSI hard drive, but my feeling is they will be very close.
 
Excellent - glad to hear that there was a happy ending. I think there is a pretty good (by hobbyist standards) market for Michael's product and I'm glad to see that he is taking his responsibility to his purchasers seriously.

BTW, the SCSI2SD product has a smaller footprint than the drive it replaces; this was done to keep the printed circuit board costs down. Michael has designed a mounting frame that adapts the small board to the original mounting holes. The specs for the frame are available from him. I had several printed by a local 3D printing company for $3 each.

Jack
 
Last edited:
Excellent - glad to hear that there was a happy ending. I think there is a pretty good (by hobbyist standards) market for Michael's product and I'm glad to see that he is taking his responsibility to his purchasers seriously.

BTW, the SCSI2SD product has a smaller footprint than the drive it replaces; this was done to keep the printed circuit board costs down. Michael has designed a mounting frame that adapts the small board to the original mounting holes. The specs for the frame are available from him. I had several printed by a local 3D printing company for $3 each.

Jack

Roe,
I'm glad to hear that all is working well for you! I think this may be a great way to keep PDP-11s running (assuming you can find the needed SCSI Qbus or Unibus card). I plan to eventually have a number of SD cards with various operating systems.

I also loaded the V3.51 firmware on my 2nd SCSI2SD card and found that it worked just fine as well on my PDP-11/83 (RSX11M+ V4.6) I did some testing of the V3.4 firmware versus the V3.51 firmware with a 6,000 block file copy. With the V3.4 firmware I saw about 50 I/Os a sec moving 409 KB/sec and with the newer V3.51 it ran at 67 I/Os / sec with 550 KB /sec. This is about as fast as I ever saw with real PDP-11 disks back in the day. I might do better copying from one drive to another Michael has said that I/O between the SD card and the CPU on the SCSI2SD is the bottle neck. Also, getting the Emulex UC07 to work with DMA burst mode might help.

Jack,
I would be interested in the mounting frame you mentioned. I don't know of any 3D printing shops in my area. Does the one you used do mail order?
I have my SCSI2SD card mounted to a piece of plywood that has been drilled for mounting to a 5 1/4 disk sled. It works but is not very pretty. Ideally I'd like to have a mount system for two SCSI2SD cards to facilitate copying SD cards, resizing disk images etc.

Matlock
 
SUCCESS! And I have to say that Michael McMaster does fantastic work very quickly. He released a new version earlier today (3.5.1), and my pdp11/83 is now running RT-11 very nicely indeed. I haven't tested the 3.5.1 Linux binary configuration and firmware upload utilities yet, but the windows versions work perfectly.

As far as speed goes, RT-11 seems very snappy. I'm going to install 2.11 bsd and run kernel rebuild timing comparisons against a fairly fast SCSI hard drive, but my feeling is they will be very close.

That is good news indeed! It's good to know that I'm heading down the correct path. :D
 
Matlock,

Here is a picture of the frame Michael has developed to adapt the SCSI2SD to a standard drive footprint. http://www.codesrc.com/images/SCSI2SD/SCSI2SD_V3.0.jpg . It is the black plastic "scaffold" seen below the board. He provides an .stl file for 3-D printing.

I used makexyz.com to locate a local 3-D printer. If you can't find anyone locally, I could have a couple more printed and I'll mail them too you. They're quite light.

Jack
 
Jack,
Thanks for the link to makexyz.com I found some one in my area that I'm going to try. The image you posted was very helpful to understand how the cards could be mounted.
Thanks and Best Regards,
Matlock
 
I've put in my order for one of these too. I don't have enough small SCSI drives to hold the
multiple OS's I wish to be able to boot on my 11/84.
 
I'm curious: which OS and why?
I already have BSD 2.11 on a bootable small SCSI drive (2G drive, but partitioned to be the
same size as my RA92 (1.5G). Once I have the SCSI drive copied I can then easily
DD to the RA92 and boot from real hardware. I'd also like to try RSTS but have
only ever run that in Simh. I don't have enough small SCSI drives any more to
keep one dedicated per OS. And eventually those drove will fail so the SCSI2D
should keep my system bootable when they do.
 
All,
I got a second SCSI2SD card in and made a 4 foot long ribbon cable with the IDE crimp on connectors and now have two DU: micro SD cards running on the PDP-11/83. It was a bit tricky configuring the two drives with the Emulex UC07 F.R.D. software embedded in the controller. Along the way of getting it working I got some bad settings and wiped my bootable SD RSX11M+ that I had SYSGENed. I reloaded the baseline RSX and got both cards configured properly and after it was all working, redid the SYSGEN, and NETGEN. I also loaded Johnny Billquist's TCP/IP and got it running by copying the RL02 .DSK image to a VCP virtual disk. Once TCP/IP was running I can ftp files from a local Linux machine and bring over other .DSK or .TAp images from bitsavers. The DECnet also is working well to Simh but the latest version (v4.0) with XQ thottle capabilities is important to avoid over runs on the real PDP-11s ethernet card.

I made a piggy back mounting set up with PC board standoffs that I mounted to my thin plywood mounted on a BA23 5 1/4 drive slide. The long cable lets me pull out the cards to update firmware etc. At the moment I have one card running the V3.4 firmware and the other running the V3.52 firmware but I have them both on V3.52 soon. Both drives are currently RD54 sized images but I plan to update both to RA81 sizes as soon as I make good backups of them with dd onto the iMac.

Speed on the dual drive system is pretty good but I do get some benefit from using the RSX disk caching system. I can tell that the V3.52 firmware is faster than the V3.4 firmware.

If anyone has specific questions on the UC07 F.R.D. configuration and SCSI2SD let me know. I saved a copy of my interaction with it so I don't have to repeat my mistakes at some point in the future.

Matlock
 
If anyone has specific questions on the UC07 F.R.D. configuration and SCSI2SD let me know. I saved a copy of my interaction with it so I don't have to repeat my mistakes at some point in the future.

Matlock

I'm not yet knowledgeable enough regarding the UC07 and your setup to ask any specific questions, but I do hope to replicate your experience/configuration over the end-year holidays. So any notes that you'd care to share while it's fresh in your mind would certainly be appreciated!

Thanks,

paul
 
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