VOGONS


First post, by teh_Foxx0rz

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A while ago I took away a haul of old workshop/server PCs and related parts. In one of the PCs was some kind of SCSI setup. It has a Tekram-branded SCSI controller (first card pictured) which looks what I presume is pretty standard (though I've not had much experience with SCSI parts, and haven't seemed to find drivers which work for it yet, despite the ones I tried claiming to be for "DC-395U". Would anyone be able to help with that while I'm here, by any chance?).

However, it also has this second, very unusual, "backwards" PCI SCSI card. The components are on the wrong side! And it has a DB-9 serial-style connector on the rear. What on earth is this card? Why are the components on the wrong side of the board? It has labels for "Gretagmacbeth SPMI" and "Heidelberg"; earching for those things brings me to some pictures of it, and some "spectrophotometer" things. All I can presume is that it must thus be some kind of PCI SCSI spectrophotometer controller? But I have no clue of my own.

The PC it came from was a Socket 478 with a Celeron of some kind in, and a Windows XP sticker on the front. There was also a twin of this system but with more conventional expansion cards, and there were other PCs with Windows XP stickers on in the haul (one of which was being upgraded to Windows 7, haha), so while none of them came with their installation hard drives in place, I can only presume it had been running Windows XP while it was still being used?

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Reply 1 of 11, by weedeewee

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Seems like that heidelberg card is more a scsi device than a pci device if it was attached to the scsi interface, since the pci card edge connector has hardly any pins connected and those that are, are most likely just power & ground pins.

edit: as for the dc-395U, have you tried it with a linux boot ?

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
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Reply 2 of 11, by teh_Foxx0rz

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Yeah I noticed the extreme lack of pins; very strange all around!

Mm, well, I've never dabbled with Linux, so I haven't even looked into doing that, no. I know it can add some flexibility to testing more niche hardware like these, though.

Reply 3 of 11, by Horun

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teh_Foxx0rz wrote on 2023-06-03, 15:07:

A while ago I took away a haul of old workshop/server PCs and related parts. In one of the PCs was some kind of SCSI setup. It has a Tekram-branded SCSI controller (first card pictured) which looks what I presume is pretty standard (though I've not had much experience with SCSI parts, and haven't seemed to find drivers which work for it yet, despite the ones I tried claiming to be for "DC-395U". Would anyone be able to help with that while I'm here, by any chance?).

Hmm it is based on the Tekram S1040 AIC and XP should have drivers built in. Being PCI spec 2.1 it will not work on PCI boards before about 1997.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000301140835/htt … t=DC-3X5_Series
and http://web.archive.org/web/20050308081400/htt … ?Product=DC-395
Did you try this driver set: WinX_nov_Drv305.ZIP ???
Are you able to get into the scsi bios (F2 or F6 iirc). If the bios was disabled then you need the dos "util.exe" to re-enable it. I have one Tekram similar and it works like an Adaptec 2940U.....

The other card is indeed a specific scsi type most likely for scanner, tape drive or specialty device...

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Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 4 of 11, by teh_Foxx0rz

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Hmm, I was trying it on a board from 2001, a Socket 370 board with Tualatin support, although admittedly, the manual doesn't seem to mention what version of PCI. But four years after 1997, perhaps it's not seen as worth mentioning anymore.

I'll try things out with this more specific knowledge, thanks.

Also, I suppose I won't likely be able to test this other stranger SCSI card then; at least not without the device it was made for (and I guess the drivers for the combination, too).

Reply 5 of 11, by Horun

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teh_Foxx0rz wrote on 2023-06-03, 22:45:

Hmm, I was trying it on a board from 2001, a Socket 370 board with Tualatin support, although admittedly, the manual doesn't seem to mention what version of PCI. But four years after 1997, perhaps it's not seen as worth mentioning anymore.

I'll try things out with this more specific knowledge, thanks.

Also, I suppose I won't likely be able to test this other stranger SCSI card then; at least not without the device it was made for (and I guess the drivers for the combination, too).

NO that board should be just fine PCI spec wise. The quirk came with certain Intel 82371 and equal south bridges in mid 1990's. Example: Intel 82371AB, EB and SB have PCI 2.1 but not the FB (original PIIX) iirc.
Most boards from Intel HX chipset or Equal and upward should be fine 😀 just a generalization ....
Do you see the Tekram BIOS pop up at all ? even w/o a device attached it should show briefly.

Yes I would plug that odd card in just to see if it's BIOS pops up.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 6 of 11, by weedeewee

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to clarify. That odd card will not pop up in the mainboard bios, but it might/should pop up in the SCSI bios if the scsi cable is connected to a scsi card with scsi bios enabled.
That odd card is not a pci device.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 8 of 11, by mdog69

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May have some more clues regarding the "fits in a pci slot, but isn't a pci card" card

The two programmable devices say GRETAGMACBETH and the PCB has the markings GRETAG, so working on the basis that this is a card made by Gretag and it does "SPMI", i was persuaded to '"gretag" spmi' (without single quotes), which gives very few answers, but the Google extracts displayed include the following text:
"X-Rite/Gretag-Macbeth Eye-One Pro display colorimeter"
"Gretag Macbeth Spectroscan"
"Gretag Macbeth Color Eye"
"Gretag Macbeth Color Checker"

I'm wondering if this card turns a colour sensing device with an <unknown> serial interface into something that looks like a generic SCSI scanner.

If I had that Gretag card at home, I would be tempted to plug it into the internal scsi port on the linux box I use for archiving and testing stuff, then boot the box up and (a) see what the kernel reported using dmesg and (b) load the sg SCSI generic support module and see if anything else appeared in the dmesg output. I'd then (c) power down and see what it was worth on ebay...

Reply 9 of 11, by teh_Foxx0rz

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mdog69 wrote on 2023-06-04, 10:13:

I'm wondering if this card turns a colour sensing device with an <unknown> serial interface into something that looks like a generic SCSI scanner.

That's a compelling idea, yeah.

So, it seems like I should definitely get some SCSI setup figured out so I can interrogate the card a bit, if I'm curious enough.
I have some PIII Tualatin server towers from the same haul too, and those have SCSI integrated on their boards, if I have trouble with this Tekram SCSI controller.

Looking on Ebay I can't seem to find anything like this card, but a month or two ago I did a quick look and seemed to find a bunch of listings from China for several hundred, but with no actual sold listings. So who knows!

Horun: I'll try it out again when I get time, now that I know what to look out for, and report back!

Reply 10 of 11, by teh_Foxx0rz

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So, I got that Tekram SCSI controller working, and tested the strange SCSI card! It doesn't reveal anything new, but I can share what it looks like in the SCSI configuration.

I guess the new thing is that it mentions "CD-ROM", but perhaps that's just what it was best for them to have it behave like, if it was running some detector which would of course only provide data but not be anything that can be written back to.

But speaking of that, I did come across a CD(-R) in all this stuff which mentioned "Heidelberg". No idea how relevant it is however, and it just contains a "GHS" and a "GHO" file, which are apparently drive backups or something. So, this doesn't answer any questions, and may only ask more haha.

But yeah, I think that's as far as I can get with what I already have, at least.

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Reply 11 of 11, by Disruptor

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teh_Foxx0rz wrote on 2023-11-06, 22:26:

I guess the new thing is that it mentions "CD-ROM", but perhaps that's just what it was best for them to have it behave like, if it was running some detector which would of course only provide data but not be anything that can be written back to.

But speaking of that, I did come across a CD(-R) in all this stuff which mentioned "Heidelberg". No idea how relevant it is however, and it just contains a "GHS" and a "GHO" file, which are apparently drive backups or something. So, this doesn't answer any questions, and may only ask more haha.

But yeah, I think that's as far as I can get with what I already have, at least.

The drive report sounds like a SSD that behaves and contains an image of a CDROM.
You need Norton Ghost (classic) to open GHS files. I don't know whether 7zip can handle them too.