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booting adaptec 29160 on Mac 8500



I want to make sure of something before I buy a SCSI card for my Mac 8500.

The Mac 8500 (an old world machine) comes with built-in SCSI, but the internal connector is narrow SCSI-2 (8 bit, I think 10 MHz). I want to speed up my mac rather than buy a whizzy new Mac for now.

Will the Adaptec PowerDomain 29160 Ultra160 SCSI host bus adapter be able to boot my Macintosh? I guess this would require that there be open firmware on the SCSI card that is compatible with the ancient and rather funky open firmware that is in my Mac.

The 29160 data sheet that I downloaded from Adaptec's web site says it is bootable, but I'm concerned that may only be accurate for the newer machines.

Also, the 29160 (as opposed to the 29160N) is a 64-bit PCI card. I have only 32-bit PCI slots. In general, you can use a 64 bit card in a 32 bit slot, but there are some machines where this won't fit mechanically. Is this a problem for the 8500? I want the 29160 rather than the 29160N because my mac already has old-fashioned SCSI connectors, and I'd like to have the option to attach Ultra160 devices externally.

Mike
--
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com/
crawford@goingware.com

     Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.



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