Path: news1.icaen!news.uiowa.edu!NewsNG.Chicago.Qual.Net!news2.ais.net!jamie!ais.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!news.usyd.edu.au!news1.optus.net.au!optus!ozemail!ozemail.com.au!hmag From: hmag@ozemail.com.au (Terry Allen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: RamFAST Working, Simple Docs here Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 17:03:25 +1000 Organization: hEARd Magazine Lines: 48 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: slgos2p56.ozemail.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.4.0 Xref: news1.icaen comp.sys.apple2:138409 Finally got my RamFAST SCSI working, so wrote some simple DOCS for others having trouble. Getting my Mac's Zip drive to work with my GS & RamFAST SCSI card (Revision C w/256k) required taking a lot of time to scour the various Apple II resources on the net, including newsgroups & the web. After posting in comp.sys.apple2 numerous times, finally someone (supertimer@aol.com) knew how to get into the SCSI utilities in the firmware on the card ROM. That wasn't enough to get the card to recognise the Zip drive though & some more scouring turned up a RamFAST manual in text format in one of the directories of ftp://apple.cabi.net/pub/ This is along with loads of other stuff for the Apple II & IIGS at that URL. Anyway, after reading through the manual, I discovered the DIP switch settings for the card. Apparently some other RamFAST SCSI card revisions use a jumper block instead of the DIP switch. The only switch positions mentioned on the 8-position switch on the Revision C card are 1 & 2 All other switches should be off. If you are using a //e, then all should be off except switch 2. If you are using a GS, all should be off except switch 1. In my particular case, I couldn't get the Zip drive to be recognised until I switched termination off. Having termination switched on with switch 1 on caused the machine to lock up in a condition which even a full reset (OA-Control-Reset) wouldn't work & couldn't acess anything else either. Switching the Zip Drive to SCSI ID 5 with Termination set to OFF enabled the card to be recognised in the following fashion. Start the GS without anything plugged into the SCSI card & enter the control panel. Make sure the slot your RamFAST SCSI card is plugged into is set to 'YOUR CARD', then switch off. Plug your Zip drive into the card & switch it on, making sure Termination is set to OFF. Switch your GS on, immediaately pressing the zero '0' key & wait for the built in utilities to come up. Your RamFAST card should recognise the Zip drive, in which case you'll be able to format & partition the drive. Restart the GS with your GS/OS install disk & you'll be able to install the GS/OS. Once installation is complete, reboot & you'll have a working boot drive with GS/OS courtesy of your Zip. A number of people emailed me regarding this during the course of getting it to work, with many suggestions. If you have trouble, try switching the termination to ON or changing the SCSI ID to 6. Not all SCSI buses need termination as I have found in my troubleshooting with many pople's Macs & on other Apple IIs. Hope this helps someone else in trouble & will be included in the FAQ. -- Bye For Now, Terry Allen hEARd - Non-profit Promotion For new music. WWW - http://www.ozemail.com.au/~hmag Email - hmag@ozemail.com.au