Zip-Drives and Atari ST

[snoopy]

Hi,
lately I tried to gather information on this subject. It seems to be possible to connect regular external Zip- or Jazz-Drives (100 mb and 250mb) either to the ST/e's external ports or to the HD connectors inside the SH204/5 casing.
Does anyone of you use any of these setups? Is this working as promised?
Here's my research:
http://www.notator.org/html/contributions.html#zipdrive
http://www.notator.org/contributions/zip_info1.txt


Cheers

[joska]

Hi,
lately I tried to gather information on this subject. It seems to be possible to connect regular external Zip- or Jazz-Drives (100 mb and 250mb) either to the ST/e's external ports or to the HD connectors inside the SH204/5 casing.
Does anyone of you use any of these setups? Is this working as promised?

I've never used it with an ST/STe, but I've used the SCSI-version with a TT and the IDE-version with a Falcon. No problems in either case. I used HD-Driver's TOS/DOS-mode to exchange data with my PC.

[snoopy]

Thanks for responding so fast.
How exactly does this work? I take an external drive, and connect the scsi cable directly to the ST/e's external port? Just like that or is there something else to take care of first? (special cable, jumpers etc.)

[AtariMega125]

I use an ADSCSI plus host adaptor in a small SCSI box. The SCSI connector on the ADSCSI card is connected to the external Centronics SCSI port on the back of the box which is connected to an external SCSI zip drive. It works for any Atari ST. For an external SCSI Zip drive, you need a host adaptor that implements parity. Later versions of the ADSCSI and ADSCSI plus and ICD link II should all work with zip drives. The internal SCSI drives have a parity jumper which means they might work with a non parity host adaptor like the Supra external HDs which have a 25 pin external SCSI port so you might be able to put an internal SCSI zip in a SCSI case with parity disabled and use it as the second drive connected to a Supra drive case. I've never tried it but it might work. I have connected a second drive to a Supra case with no problems as long as it is compatible with the host adaptor.

[snoopy]

Thank you. Sounds tricky. Especially since I've never seen a Supra drive on ebay or any of the hardware you mentioned. Is there a way to use less rare (and probably expensive) hardware? The linked document talks about modding an external harddrive like the SH204 (I've got one sitting on my desk just now ). How would I go about that?

[AtariMega125]

ICD and Supra drives and host adaptors do come up on ebay. Unfortunately, these days they are not cheap and expect $100 or more as the selling price. It is trickier to find the hardware than to set it up.

The SH204 has a very old host adaptor and I think it wouldn't be the one to use with a zip drive. I've read somewhere it has an unusual host adaptor that does both SCSI 1 and MFM drives but both these standards are ancient and there are issues other than parity with older scsi systems. Anything made after 1992 would be better. Supra host adaptors are somewhat better than the SH204 adaptor but it is still difficult to find compatible drives for them. In fact, the one reason I keep the Supra box is to test SCSI drives I pull from old Macs for Atari ST compatibility. If they work with the Supra box, they are going to work with the internal host adaptors of either my Mega 4 or Mega STE.

[DarkLord]

Closely related, I have an EZ135 drive hooked up to the Mega ST that runs my BBS,
via a Link2. It works fine.

[snoopy]

And I thought, I had found a cheap and easy way to replace my dead hd ... thanks for the tips so far.

[snoopy]

Found something new: http://leute.server.de/peichl/pofozip.htm
That guy is writing that you can connect a normal external scsi zIp-drive to the parallel port of a Portfolio.
Can I do the same with an Atari ST/STe?

[AtariSince1989]

Found something new: http://leute.server.de/peichl/pofozip.htm
That guy is writing that you can connect a normal external scsi zIp-drive to the parallel port of a Portfolio.
Can I do the same with an Atari ST/STe?

Do you mean using that PofoZip software? I doubt it, as it is probably a driver written specifically for the Portfolio.

You could ask the guy to write the same driver for the ST, but I don't see any ST in his collection.

[coze]

Found something new: http://leute.server.de/peichl/pofozip.htm
That guy is writing that you can connect a normal external scsi zIp-drive to the parallel port of a Portfolio.
Can I do the same with an Atari ST/STe?

erm, no, he doesn't say that.

What you need:

* Atari Portfolio and parallel interface
* Iomega ZIP-100-drive, parallel port version. The ZIPplus drive is currently not supported.

you need a parallel port ZIP drive. And the software to access it of course, I'm pretty sure that portfolio driver won't work due to totally different architecture.

[snoopy]

Oh, I see. You are right... Ok, back to square one then... I guess, I'll just get me a used external hd off ebay then;a megafile or sth. the like).
Or: Maybe I can somehow replace the old and busted MFM 20 meg drive inside my SH204. I've read you could use SCSI drives. IS there something to be careful about, or can I just use any SCSI drive?

[Marakatti]

I have a Zip-drive in my Falcon's SCSI chain. Also used one with STe / Link 97 SCSI adaptor setup earlier. I've formatted ZIP-disk with HD-driver and they work very well, if a little slow.

For Falcon this thing really shines because MiNT can read the same format than Mac and PC. For filetransfer it's a fabulous piece of hardware

The ACSI <-> SCSI cable doesn't seem to be very complicated piece of hardware so maybe the guys with electronics skills are able to build one?

[snoopy]

Thanks for answering. I don't think I will ever own a Falcon (considering the price) or a TT, so I will probably never need Mint. I was thinking of getting some sort of mass storage for the occasional dumping (though I already dumped 3/4 of my disks) and playing disk images with ppera's image runner or with there hdd images he provides; for some old school gaming on the real hardware .

[snoopy]

Oh, what's this STe / Link 97 SCSI adaptor setup?

[DarkLord]

I have a Zip-drive in my Falcon's SCSI chain. Also used one with STe / Link 97 SCSI adaptor setup earlier. I've formatted ZIP-disk with HD-driver and they work very well, if a little slow.

For Falcon this thing really shines because MiNT can read the same format than Mac and PC. For filetransfer it's a fabulous piece of hardware

The ACSI <-> SCSI cable doesn't seem to be very complicated piece of hardware so maybe the guys with electronics skills are able to build one?

Hmm, if I remember correctly, I used to exchange carts with a PC owning guy
at our local library. There is a way to use HDDriver to setup a cart (kinda like
the SD cards and Ultrasatan now).

It is a great way to transfer/transport files.

[1024MAK]

While we are talking about SCSI and ZIP drives, what type of cable(s) are you guys using to connect the SCSI ZIP drive to your Atari's?
The ZIP drive appears to have a 25 way D type connector...
Somewhat different to the SCSI port on a Falcon
It may also help me as well as others if you take some pictures along with text notes explaining the connections.
I have used SCSI drives with IBM compatible PC's, but these all used the same standard / version of the SCSI interface, not mixed types / standards...

[chrisnova777]

hey there im just wondering if anyone has any experience using iomega zip scsi in combination with an ASCI-SCSI adapter such as the the ones that i have by ICD (ADSCSI ST Plus)

i was thinking to combine an internal scsi zip with this card
or perhaps an internal scsi card reader that can support many formats, compact flash, SD etc

does anyone have experience trying this with the 1040STE? if so please drop me a line

[Atari74user]

Yes indeed, as others have said, should be no problem to connect. When these things were new, I went with the Syquest alternatives, EZ135, EZFlyer and SyJet. For Falcon no issues other than driver, for ST you will need the addition of an ACSI to SCSI link such as Link, Link II, Toplink etc.... The same will be true for the ZIP equivalents, ZIP 100, ZIP 250 and ZIP Jaz drives.

SCSI cables are not an issue, but for the ST the ACSI to SCSI usually use 50 way centronics, so you will have to make sure that the other end matches to whatever the drives connection is. Some will be 50 way centronics DB50, some will be 25 way centronics DB25, slightly later models will be 50 pin half pitch (SCSI 2). They tend to get termed slightly differently, but generally look out for centronic DB50, DB25 or SCSI2. There are 'loads' of different interfacing SCSI cables, you just need to make sure the ends convert from the ST (50 way centronics usually via whatever ACSI to SCSI link) or Falcon (SCSI 2) to your SCSI device, simple as that.

[chrisnova777]

ive got loads of zip drive questions.. has anyone used an internal ZIP scsi with the ICD AdSCSI ST ????????

[Greenious]

The internal zip scsi works excellent with ALL atari scsi adapters. Unlike the external scsi zipdrive, you can disable parity, which is the main reason people have problems.

[DarkLord]

The EZ drives worked as well. I still have one connected to my Mega ST
with an ICD Link 2.