Mystery SCSI Card - Printable Version
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Mystery SCSI Card - callahan - 01-23-2019
I just got an Indy that has a unique SCSI card that I can't find any info on. It has 2x68 pin external connectors and is labeled "SET ENGINEERING 1700-00524-00"
As you can see from the photos, it's an interesting bit of kit with some diodes bodged to bent-up pins on three IC packages and one long jumper wire. I really wonder what rev A of the board looked like!
Anyone run into something like this before?
http://imgur.com/a/yxzwCBj
RE: Mystery SCSI Card - miod - 01-23-2019
This could be a multi-serial board, with the connector for a breakout cable. The 16 CY7C4241 chips in the middle are FIFOs, the Quicklogic chips could be Cirrus CL1400 clones, providing four serial ports each.
RE: Mystery SCSI Card - callahan - 01-26-2019
I pulled off the stickers on two of the large chips, they are both 150MHz FPGA's. Whatever this card is, it probably wasn't cheap!
Close-up of two of the 6 FPGAs: http://imgur.com/mxxS868
So the card seems to have:
6 FPGAs (5 Quicklogic ql24x32b 1pf144c and one seemingly identical spec Cypress chip) datasheet: https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/392/QL16X24B-1PF144C.php)
16 CY7C4241 FIFO chips
17 Motorola 10H351 PECL to TTL Translators
One Zilog Z8523016VSC Serial controller
One Motorola MC88915T CMOS clock driver.
RE: Mystery SCSI Card - callahan - 01-27-2019
And the mystery may have been solved. The unidentified card appears to be essentailly two of these cards sharing a single GIO32 connector:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-Indy-GIO-GIO32-Card-GIOCLC-IV-Cyclone-RIP-501251-500251/200756425908?hash=item2ebe03f4b4:g:hH8AAMXQZdFRGjsc
That card is marketed as (although I have been unable to independently verify) an interface/RIP card for the Cyclone printer/scanner software.
I've searched for info on this system and found very little (really just this page: http://archive.irix.cc/sgistuff/hardware/systems/indy.html)
Does anyone have any more info on the Cyclone system?
RE: Mystery SCSI Card - jpstewart - 01-28-2019
(01-27-2019, 03:08 AM)callahan Wrote: Does anyone have any more info on the Cyclone system?
I'm not sure if it was the "Cyclone Colorbus" or the "Colorbus Cyclone" -- I can't remember which was the company/manufacturer name and which was the product name. But googling for the combination (in either order) will get you some hits to old press releases.
Keep in mind that these RIPs were front-ends for very large, high-volume production printers from the likes of Canon and Xerox. The Cyclone hardware and software won't drive any home or office printer you're likely to find.
There's a bit of general background information in the Wikipedia article about Raster Image Processors. The EFI Fiery RIP was a common competitor at one point, and is still around. Reading up on it will give you a general impression of what the Cyclone systems used to do.
RE: Mystery SCSI Card - sunray - 01-11-2020
(01-26-2019, 05:30 PM)callahan Wrote: I pulled off the stickers on two of the large chips, they are both 150MHz FPGA's. Whatever this card is, it probably wasn't cheap!Without knowing anything about this perticular board FPGA is not usually labeled as xxx MHz, FPGA is user programmed components where the clockspeed is usually irrelevant.
Close-up of two of the 6 FPGAs: http://imgur.com/mxxS868
So the card seems to have:
6 FPGAs (5 Quicklogic ql24x32b 1pf144c and one seemingly identical spec Cypress chip) datasheet: https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/392/QL16X24B-1PF144C.php)
16 CY7C4241 FIFO chips
17 Motorola 10H351 PECL to TTL Translators
One Zilog Z8523016VSC Serial controller
One Motorola MC88915T CMOS clock driver.
Probably the sticker showed the HW revision of the FPGA firmware