Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.scanner (
More info?)
In article <MPG.1b52b75feb311d7b207e@news.individual.net>,
doogleREMOVE_THIS@netzero.net says...
>
>yeah, I don't really know.
>But I have 4 SCSI devices right now, (CD-R, Jaz drive, LS2000, HPIIcx),
>used to have external Zip drive on it also.
>
>And a heck of a alot longer than 5' total. I've got one cable that's
>maybe 4 feet alone. I'm guessing maybe 12-14 feet total chain.
>
>And a real hodgepodge of cables/connectors, 50HD, 25pin, and Centronics.
That's about my setup too, but I was never able to make three external SCSI
devices work due to cable length. One foot cables are just not very
practical for scanners. <g> With two SCSI scanners, to use an external zip
disk, I have to power down and swap it out with the last scanner to keep the
bus shorter. Even then, an internal CDR stops working if the zip is attached
(I suspect the zip auto termination is not so good).
The Fast and Ultra SCSI bus is rated 3 meters (10 feet) overall, except if
four or more devices are on the Ultra bus, the spec drops to half of that.
Generally they say at least 6 inches spacing between device connectors, which
even approaches a problem for seven internal devices too. But one can have
multiple SCSI cards of course.
SCSI was truly fantastic in its day, I was a big fan. Its coprocessor
multitasking ability was great, and the ability for multiple devices to use
one IRQ was essential because the PC was so limited. But then Windows became
able to share PCI IRQ, and other less fussy interfaces were developed, so
SCSI is fading away now, except perhaps for server disks.
--
Wayne
http://www.scantips.com "A few scanning tips"