Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By Mandino Tue May 23, 2006 2:19 pm
While SCSI flash card readers seems to be impossible to find, I just found a large stock of these on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.it/Storm-Products-8MB-S ... dZViewItem

I know 8mb isn't a lot of storage, but it would be enough for my mono drum hits (average size is 30KB, I run everything else in my Z8, which has a 60GB drive and half a gig ram). I'd love to have a flash SCSI HD for the MPC cause the one I'm using now is so noisy I have to turn it on and off everytime - quiet SCSI drives just doesn't seem to exist.

So anybody know if they'd work on a 3K? I'd mount it internally or on an external SCSI enclosure.

Any input welcome!
By mpc3000le Wed May 24, 2006 12:07 am
Mandino wrote:While SCSI flash card readers seems to be impossible to find, I just found a large stock of these on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.it/Storm-Products-8MB-S ... dZViewItem


These are LVD "Low Voltage Differential" SCSI devices and will need LVD to SE "Single Ended" conversion before they can mate correctly with an MPC3000/MPC60.

They use a 68 Way Micro D or 80 Way SCA-2 connector for interface communication.

An inline LVD<>SE converter will be needed in order to accomodate connection between the MPC3000/MPC60 internal SCSI port and one of these STORM drives.

An inline LVD<>SE converter cost wise would blow the value of this storage out of whack.

Then there is the issue that these STORM drives may not work at all ... even when connected through an LVD<>SE converter.

Rohan.

By Mandino Thu May 25, 2006 1:31 pm
Rohan,

thank you so much for your very helpful and insightful post. I'll forget about these flash drives, looks like they might not be worth the trouble.

I'd be grateful if you could use your competence and have your comment on these too:

Image

Any chance one might work with a 3000LE? They're going for peanuts and while its transfer speed might not be as good as a proper SCSI flash card reader it would be convenient for me to use (I edit my samples on a PC equipped with a card reader).

Thank you again,
Sincerely

By mpc3000le Thu May 25, 2006 1:43 pm
Mandino wrote:Rohan, thank you so much for your very helpful and insightful post. I'll forget about these flash drives, looks like they might not be worth the trouble.


If you were building in flight aeroplane system monitoring tools then the STORM drives would be an OK choice for data logging and that is about it.

Mandino wrote:I'd be grateful if you could use your competence and have your comment on these too:

Image


I don't think these are likley to work. Although you won't break anything by trying.

Remember ... The MPC3000 BIOS looks for 720K/1.44MB media in a 1.44MB floppy disk drive.

There is no support at OS level to allow anything bigger to be used via the floppy interface.

The Flashpath adapters do some funky geometry remapping tricks to allow 128 meg cards to be used via the some what limited floppy addressing system.

Use at own risk.

Report failure or otherwise back to the group.

Rohan.

By Mandino Fri May 26, 2006 9:36 am
Thanks for the input Rohan, really appreciated.

I'll definitely let the board know if this might work.

Cheers