Coming soon to this page- Adaptec SCSI cards for the G5
SCSI and SERIAL and SOUND OPTIONS for current APPLE MAC G4s
Dr. D’Lynn Waldron 11/21/02 copyright
APPLE DOES NOT SUPPORT LEGACY SCSI AND SERIAL DEVICES: THE PROBLEMS AND YOUR OPTIONS.
SOUND INPUT IS NOT AVAILABLE FROM APPLE FOR ITS QUICKSILVER G4s: THIRD PARTY OPTIONS.
USING SERIAL DEVICES WITH CURRENT APPLE COMPUTERS
The AsanteTalk ($99) serial to Ethernet converter box may work with some serial devices IF the manufacturer can supply an AppleTalk driver, which is different from the standard serial driver. If the Chooser asks you to select between the printer and modem port, you are using the serial driver. For AsantéTalk you must use an AppleTalk driver for the printer. Check with the manufacturer of the printer to see if they offer one. Epson does not. http://www.asante.com
The existing driver of my indestructible HP 5MP Postrcript Laser printer worked just fine, but AsanteTalk needed the addition of two AppleTalk/LocalTalk connectors between the printer and the AsanteTalk box.
Neither Apple nor anyone else still sells AppleTalk/LocalTalk connectors. (Fortunately I had two on my shelf along with the hundreds of other cables and connectors from my 18 years as a Mac developer.)
IF you can find AppleTalk/LocalTalk connectors, you have to initialize the set-up by firing up everything in sequence with the HP printer turned on and warmed up first. The set-up does not have to be reinitialized unless power is cut to AsanteTalk.
SOUND INPUT/OUTPUT OPTIONS FOR APPLE QUICKSILVER G4s
To save a few bucks, Apple has not included sound input in the Quicksilver G4s which Apple specifically recommends for creating multi-media, and of course there is voice recognition built into Apple’s operating system, and a capability for live narration in Apple’s latest Final Cut Pro, which can be very important for documentary and news editing.
The Apple site says you need to buy a USB sound input box, which Apple does not sell, and to click to find out what that box is and where to buy it. Alas Apple neglected to put that information at the end of the link, or anywhere else on their site.
Well, I finally found out what those USB audio interface input/output sound boxes are.
The iMic™ universal audio adapter is a USB device that adds a stereo input and output to a Mac or PC. This allows the connection of virtually any microphone or sound input device. iMic supports both line and Mic level input as well as line level output for any USB capable computer. Griffin says that USB provides significantly superior audio input and output performance over built in audio.
If you are not plugging the iMic directly into one of your computer's USB ports, Griffin says that most USB Hubs failed to support USB Audio devices, such as the iMic and that the Griffin USB-Audio 4-Port Hub is optimized for audio. It works unpowered or with the included 5 volt power supply.
Griffin iMic USB Audio Interface 16 bit. SRP $35. Griffin USB-Audio 4-Port Hub $39
http://www.griffintechnology.com
Edirol makes digital to digital audio capture devices in a wide range of models and prices:
http://www.edirol.com/products/audio.html
PROBLEMS USING SCSI DEVICES WITH APPLE-INSTALLED SCSI PCI CARDS
We in the graphics, music, motion picture and multi-media industries have many very expensive and essential SCSI devices for film scanning, film recording, DAT tape storage, music creation, editing movies and TV, etc., and many of these are only available as SCSI.
All these SCSI devices work on System 9 with Adaptec cards such as the Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card, that do not have a firmware BIOS on the card.
With a firmware BIOS, the System queries that BIOS on boot and obtains the card's driver from it, Most device drivers do not know to look for that kind of driver and cannot find their device even though the card even though System Profiler says the device is attached.
A card that does not have a driver in BIOS firmware on the card uses a traditional System Extension that is on the hard drive in the System's Extensions Folder and is loaded from that on boot. The SCSI device drivers are almost all programed to look only for that kind of Extension to find their device through the SCSI card.
If you can see your device in the System Profiler but the device's driver says no device is attached, the problem is communication through the card.
The two PCI SCSI cards currently installed by Apple, the Adaptec 2930 and the Ultra 160 SCSI Dual Channel made for Apple by ATTO, have a firmware BIOS on the card so that drives attached to them can be used to boot.
Apple System 10.2 Jaguar is an entirely new pure Unix based system and it supposedly has the SCSI card software built right into the system for Adaptec's the 2930 and the earlier non-BIOS 2906 PCI SCSI cards, and the Ultra 160.and this may allow the drivers, applications and plug-ins to see that their SCSI device is attached.
Apple provides no specs with the SCSI cards it installs, and by policy Apple offers no support or advice on using their SCSI cards, and the tech paper on the Apple site http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n58580 was last updated in November 2000. Neither the top SCSI man at Apple tech support, nor the SCSI man at the Apple Store in the Grove in LA, knew anything about this problem, or that the cards they install have a driver on them in firmware, or that Jaguar has some built in SCSI drivers.
The very helpful and knowledgeable Bruce Buxton with Adaptec provided me with all this essential information.
THE SCSI CARDS APPLE CURRENTLY INSTALLS AND BETTER ALTERNATIVES
Apple sells its 9230 and $731 Ultra 160 SCSI cards as being fully backward compatible to all SCSI devices, but so far I have only one device, a UMAX scanner, whose driver can find it's device.
When you buy your Quicksilver G4 direct from Apple you have a choice of two SCSI cards which Apple installs:
1) The Adaptec 2930CU PCI SCSI card has a firmware BIOS. It is about $59 and comes with an adapter to go from its 50-pin high-density connector to a DB25 female so you that you can connect a DB 25 male SCSI cable to begin your legacy SCSI device chain (much of which won't work do to the firmware BIOS on the card.) Adaptec does make other PCI SCSI cards without a firmware BIOS.
http://www.adaptec.com
2) The outrageously overpriced Ultra 160 SCSI Dual Channel PCI card has a firmware BIOS. Apple sells the Ultra 160 for $731 with no specs and by Apple policy NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT what so ever for SCSI. The Ultra 160 has an internal and external a 68 pin wide connector. No 68 wide to DB25 female adapter to use for legacy SCSI devices is available from Apple or anywhere else! (All I could find anywhere was a 32 inch cable 68 wide to DB25 male at a large store in Los Angeles that specializes in cables and connectors.)
The Ultra 160 SCSI is manufactured to Apple’s unique specs by ATTOs based on the ATTO PCI UL3D but there are significant differences and the ATTO PCI UL3D is a much better card for much less money.
--- Both cards are supposed to be fully compatible with all SCSI devices, whether Low Voltage LVD or Single End.
--- The Apple Ultra 160 has 68 pin wide connectors both internal and external and a top speed of 160. Price $731.
--- The ATTO Express PCI UL3D has HD 68 pin internal and VHDCI external and a top speed of 360. Price $541
http://www.attotech.com
BELOW IS THE INFORMATION PROVIDED TO ME BY ATTO'S VICTOR KONSHIN, Application Engineer for Content Creation
"Let me start by explaining a few things about how SCSI HBAs work in a Mac system. Firstly, on all SCSI HBAs there is firmware. This is the software that runs the chip on the SCSI card it's self. There is also a driver that links the OS with the SCSI card. All of our SCSI cards have this driver built into the flash of the card. When you boot the Mac in OS 9, the system automatically goes to the SCSI card and loads the driver directly from firmware memory. This makes for a simple "plug and play" experience for the user. In OS X, Apple has just recently added the capability to load OS drivers from flash memory. We have not implemented this function in our HBAs yet but plan to in the near future. Because there is no OS driver in flash for OS X a driver needs to be installed in OS X as a kernel extension. Drivers for all of our SCSI HBAs (except the UL4 cards) are "pre-installed" into OS X, therefore nothing needs to be loaded. We have recently released a "plus" driver on our web site that can be install to provide better performance and allow our HBAs to be configured (most customers do not need to make any configuration changes). Our website also contains drivers for our UL4 cards. This is all that is needed to use our cards on OS 9 and OS X. The HBA's BIOS is only used in windows applications. On Mac, only the firmware and OS drivers are needed. All SCSI devices should function on our HBAs, even older devices (though most older devices do not have drivers for them on OS X). We do extensive testing with a wide range of devices to ensure compatibility across the board and that all SCSI devices work flawlessly."
I hope that this answers all of your question. If not, let me know. -Victor Konshin"
Dear Victor,
Thank you for the detailed information, but that still does not solve the simple problem that the device driver in the computer is looking for a certain type of System Extension through which to communicate, by way of the card, to its device on the SCSI chain. With the SCSI card drivers loaded from firmware on the card at boot, the device drivers cannot find their device. Best wishes, Lynn
THE AUTHOR
Dr. D’Lynn Waldron has written over 1000 technical articles and reviews on Mac related products, and has been involved in the development of hardware and software since the Mac 128 in 1984.
