🚀 go-pugleaf

Philip Bragg <philb@vossnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:80m04m$cen$1@reef.news.technocom.net...
>
> Tom Bird wrote in message <6HB5$DA3EyK4Ewv$@dbqa.demon.co.uk>...
> >In article <5o1f08.m04.ln@linux.a-taylor>, Andrew Taylor <news@hot-
> >shot.demon.co.uk> writes
> >
> >>You can get a pci adaptec 2904 scsi card for like �25. Well worth it.
> >
> >Can you boot from these?  I suspect not but it's worth asking.
> >
> >I want a cheap bootable Linux supported narrow [1] SCSI card[2].
> >
>
>
> A few weeks ago I bought a non-bootable �25 inc vat "Iwill 2903" which is
> basically an Advansys ABP-940 without the boot ROM and the settings
storage
> EEPROM on board. I'm fairly good with a soldering iron, so I soldered a
DIL
> socket into the vacant space on the board which looked as though it should
> have the boot ROM on it, then I used my Black and Decker paint stripping
> heat gun to remove the EEPROM from an old 3com ethernet card (most NICs
have
> EEPROMs on them, some ISA pnp soundcards do too) and soldered it neatly
into
> the bit of the board which looked vaguely as if it wanted an EEPROM
> soldering onto it. The next step was to visit the Advansys FTP site, where
I
> found a firmware directory, complete with a note to say that you need an
> EPROM programmer to program new firmware into their cards, which is ok
> because I have one of those... I also had a duff old 386 motherboard with
a
> 27C512 EPROM on it, so I prised the chip out of that and cooked it in my
UV
> EPROM eraser for a half hour or so and then programmed it up with the file
> I'd downloaded from the Advansys FTP server. Randomly inserting 4700 ohm
> resistors on the board (there were 6 vacant slots for what looked like
> pullup resistors) proved to me that the board didn't really need them and
it
> booted the machine quite happily of a 2G scsi disk I'd been given (someone
> insisted that it was faulty).
>
> First time round the SCSI card did complain that the EEPROM was corrupt,
but
> theres an option in the CTRL-A boot screen for resetting to factory
> defaults.
>
> The end result is I have a bootable Ultra (narrow) SCSI card which cost me
> �25, about 3/4 of an hour of my time, a knackered ethernet card, old 386
> BIOS chip and some solder. It occasionally fails to reset which is fine by
> me as I'm only using it in a test bed machine, I wouldn't want to put a
hack
> like this in a server anyway.
>
> Those Iwill cards are everywhere, worth picking up if you're a bit of a
> hardware hacker with a few spare minutes.
>
> -phil
>

Sorry, couldn't help but reply....

Well bloody hell!!! Very large round of applause. You made me laugh, it was
like the A-Team meets McGuyver at a computer fair. You're either very very
clever and new it would work or your a manic who needs putting back in his
box!!! You should e-mail that to the guys at advansys they'd employ you
straight off. What else have you created?

Andrew

PS this *isn't* sarcastic, i'm overwhelmed, i truly am.