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  • Alphastation 200 - replace 50 pin scsi drive with 80 pin?

    From Chuck Wagner@21:1/5 to All on Mon Aug 31 14:19:44 2020
    So I've got an Alphastation 200 that I haven't turned on in about 20 years that won't boot, and from time to time after a reset the hard drive disappears.

    Anyone know if an 80 pin drive like a DEC DS-RZ2CA-LA will work with a 50 pin to 80 pin adapter board?

    Thanks - Chuck

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  • From Grant Taylor@21:1/5 to Chuck Wagner on Tue Sep 1 08:18:28 2020
    On 8/31/20 3:19 PM, Chuck Wagner wrote:
    Anyone know if an 80 pin drive like a DEC DS-RZ2CA-LA will work with
    a 50 pin to 80 pin adapter board?

    I've run into a similar problem with older SUNs.

    Yes, I've gotten a 50-pin SCSI-I / SCSI-II to 80-pin SCA adapter and
    /some/ /specific/ 80-pin SCA drives to work.

    The crux of the matter seems to be that SCSI-I / SCSI-II is /narrow/ and
    SCA drives can be /narrow/ and / or /wide/. So you must find an 80-pin
    SCA drive that supports /narrow/ operations.

    Beyond that, it's a game of what will physically fit in the space that
    you have.

    Thanks - Chuck

    You're welcome, and good luck.



    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die

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  • From Stephen Hoffman@21:1/5 to Chuck Wagner on Wed Sep 2 15:56:54 2020
    On 2020-08-31 21:19:44 +0000, Chuck Wagner said:

    So I've got an Alphastation 200 that I haven't turned on in about 20
    years that won't boot, and from time to time after a reset the hard
    drive disappears.

    Anyone know if an 80 pin drive like a DEC DS-RZ2CA-LA will work with a
    50 pin to 80 pin adapter board?

    Try it. There was wide-hostile SCSI gear around back then, which was
    later replaced with wide-friendly gear.
    The wide-hostile gear didn't ignore the use of the fourth addressing
    pin. The wide-friendly gear did.
    Or cluster with and boot from an OpenVMS server running on something
    newer, and run the AlphaStation 200 system diskless.


    --
    Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

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