Emulex MT-02 on Sun3/260

[Scott Leadley]

In article <7404 at brazos.Rice.edu> ojala at cs.hut.fi (Petri Ojala) writes:
>
>Yesterday we did some research inside the machine and found out that the
>tape drive seems to be ordinary 60Mb Wangtek SCSI tape connected to an
>card called a MT-02 tape controller in the manuals.
>
>So the big question is: Can I put SCSI disks to this controller ?  If yes,
>how (any dip changes required?)?

Yes, you can add disks to this SCSI controller.  However, the stock cable
in the Sun 3/260 is rather short and unless the disk fits into the cabinet
and can be powered from the system power supply, you are going to have to
make a custom cable (or easier yet, have it made for you).

You will find (if you open up the front panel and swing the power supply
out of the way) that the stock ribbon cable has a 96 pin connector that is
connected to the controller by plugging it into the backplane (not
elegant, but it works).  What you want is a cable just like the one that
is there now, but with a lot more cable between the the 50 pin connector
that plugs into the MT-02 and the 50 pin connector dangling free at the
end of the cable.  Don't make the cable longer than 15 feet (just to be
safe) and I recommend that you use twisted pair ribbon cable.  To get the
cable out of the cabinet, run the free end with the 50 pin connector down
to the floor under the left sidepanel.

I don't think that Sun terminates the MT-02, and instead relies on the
short cable length to prevent problems.  This means that you may not have
to remove any termination resistors from the MT-02 (don't take my word for
it though, have somebody who knows what to look for check your
controller).  However, since this procedure extends the cable
considerably, you'll need to make sure that the drive(s) that you add
(is/are) properly terminated.

Keep the original cable.  If you have problems that can be reproduced with
the original cable in place, it stops finger-pointing.

Scott Leadley - leadley at cc.rochester.edu