Procom Technology, Inc. Micro Channel SCSI Enabler

 @7F01.ADF"Procom Technology, Inc. Micro Channel SCSI Enabler"
Runstream MCABase NCR-206 Driver (beta version, may or may not work, see below)
Original page by William R. Walsh is HERE . All typos below are copyright my fingers.

DK0046.ZIP SCSI Enabler Tape Driver Utilities for Sytos Plus rev 2.02
DK0074.ZIP SCSI Enabler Drivers for DOS. OS/2 & NetWare (ASD & OEM)  rev 3.04
DK0079.ZIP Procom DOS Drivers for IBM SCSI Host Adapter (ISHA) rev 1.05
DK0104.ZIP SCSI Enabler & Xelerator Software for NetWare 3.1x/4.0 rev 1.03
DK0109.ZIP SCSI Enabler & SCSI Xelerator Software for Windows NT rev 1.01

Outline & Components
  P5 Function (assumed to be an unpopulated external power connector)
Other Stuff
Drivers
ADF Sections [from Us, god Emperor of Microchannel]


Procom Technology, Inc. Micro Channel SCSI EnablerProcom MC SCSI
                Enabler
 
P2 - 50 pin high density SCSI
P3 - 50 pin internal SCSI
P4 - Internal power connector
P5 - Pads for 8 pin external connector
RP1-3 - Termpacks, removable
U1 - Spare (solder pads only)
U2 - Hyundai HY6116ALP-10
U3 - MC90004 V2.02
U4 - MC90004 V2.02
U8 - SMC 94C18 MCA Bus Interface
U20 - NCR "TolerANT" 53CF94-2
Y1 - 10.000MHz
U11 - 25.000MHz
0

Function of P5
   A wild guess here...these pads might have been used to provide a connector for powering external SCSI storage boxes. Heavy traces leading to some of the pads support this theory as being plausible. Why was it left unpopulated? I'd assume the possibility of overloading it was too great. There's no room to print a warning about the power limits of this plug, and high performance drives would exceed the current rating for most cards with power connectors.

Other Stuff 
   This is the card of many copyrights. The base board has a copyright of 1989 printed on it. The ROMs are copyrighted 1994, and the NCR SCSI IC is copyrighted 1992. Datecodes on various ICs put the date of manufacture sometime in early 1994 or very late in 1993.

   What does the "TolerANT" name on an NCR SCSI IC mean? I've seen it on RAID controllers, where the meaning would be obvious. This board (and some others that I've seen) is not a RAID controller!

What is the difference between the NCR 53C94 and 53CF94?

   If memory serves, David Beem used one of these adapters (note the white end tabs above) to create "Patriot", the red, white and blue 55SX.

This adapter is capable of working with a 2GB hard disk with the 2.02 ROMs in place. It may even go as far as supporting an 8GB drive.

Drivers-
   None of Windows 95, 98 or NT appear to recognize the 53CF94 chip. The beta NCR-206 driver mentioned at the top of this page MAY work, but I've not had a chance to test it. If you try it, proceed at your own risk.

   Procom Technology is still in business, but their website is badly broken and the FTP site doesn't work at all. Does anyone have the option disk or other information that would have come with this adapter? 


Copyright 2006 William R. Walsh. All Rights Reserved.

AdapterID 7F01h "Procom Technology, Inc. Micro Channel SCSI Enabler"

Adapter I/O Address Range
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler uses 32 consecutive I/O port addresses.  If more than one Procom MC SCSI Enabler is installed in the system, each must have a separate Adapter I/O Address Range.
    <"2920h-293Fh">, 3A40-3A5F, 4B60-4B7F, 5C80-5C9F, 6DA0-6DBF, 7EC0-7EDF, 8FE0-8FFF

Adapter Base Memory Address
  The Procom MC SCSI Enabler requires 10K of contiguous ROM space.  If more than one Procom MC SCSI Enabler is installed in the system, each must have a separate Adapter Base Memory Address
   <"DC000h">, D8000, D4000, D0000, CC000, C8000

Adapter Interrupt Select
    The Procom MC SCSI Enabler requires the use of one IRQ line. If more than one Procom MC SCSI Enabler is installed in the system, they all can share one common IRQ line
    <"IRQ 10">, 11, 14, 15

DMA Arbitration Level
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler uses the host DMA to transfer data.  The Enabler will use the DMA channel corresponding to the selected arbitration level.  If more than one Procom MC SCSI Enabler is installed in the system, each must have a separate DMA Arbitration Level.
   <"Level 6" >, 7, 0, 1, 3, 4, 5

Fairness On/Off
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler supports the Micro Channel Fairness feature.  When <ON>, the SCSI Enabler will not participate  in the next arbitration after the bus has been requested by another peripheral.  When <OFF>, the SCSI Enabler will participate in all arbitrations. 
       <"Fairness ON ">, Fairness OFF

DMA Burst On/Off
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler supports the Micro Channel Bursting feature.  When <OFF>, the SCSI Enabler will arbitrate for the Micro Channel bus for each word transferred.  When <ON>, the SCSI Enabler will continue sending words over the Micro Channel as long as there are words to transfer and as long as no other peripheral requests the Micro Channel.
      <"DMA Bursting ON ">, DMA Bursting OFF

Adapter's SCSI ID
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler must have a SCSI ID number.  The ID may be any number from zero to seven which is not used by any other device on the SCSI bus.  Ordinarily, the SCSI Enabler should use <SCSI ID 7>.  Each SCSI cable may support 8 SCSI IDs (0-7).  If more than one Procom MC SCSI Enabler is installed in the system, each may control its own physically separate SCSI cable.  Thus, each SCSI cable may support 8 SCSI IDs (0-7)."
     <"SCSI ID 7">, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0

SCSI Parity Checking
   The Procom MC SCSI Enabler is capable of detecting SCSI parity errors.  When SCSI Parity Checking is set to <Check SCSI Parity>, the SCSI Enabler will attempt to re-send or re-receive the data block over the SCSI which contained the parity error. When SCSI Parity Checking is set to <Ignore SCSI Parity>, the SCSI Enabler will not check for any data parity errors.  Since parity checking is handled through hardware, no performance degradation is introduced.  Thus, under normal circumstances SCSI Parity Checking should be set to <Check SCSI Parity>.
   <"Check SCSI Parity" >, Ignore SCSI Parity

Synchronous Data Transfers
   The MC SCSI Enabler is capable of using synchronous data transfers and will attempt to do so if the SCSI device being accessed is also capable.  Some SCSI devices do not handle extended messaging properly and may hang the system during power-up. If you have a problem device that you suspect can not handle these type of messages, select <Disabled>
    <"Enabled">, Disabled

Maximum DOS Drive Support
   This setting selects the maximum number of drives to be supported directly by the BIOS without the use of an external driver with the Disk Operating System.  DOS version 5.0 allows up to 8 drives to be supported.  DOS versions below 5.0 may hang the system if more than 2 drives are reported as being supported by the BIOS.
         If more than 1 SCSI Enabler is installed, the one with the lowest memory address will determine the setting for all Enablers installed. If OS/2 2.0 or DOS 5.0 is being installed, select 
 <Support up to 8 drives>, otherwise select <Support up to 2 drives>
     < "Support up to 2 drives">, Support up to 8 drives

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