Very Computer

Hello all.
  We were planning on installing Slackware linux on a pc which has
a Trantor t-160 scsi card (please don't laugh too hard), and we were
wondering which boot disk to use. This card is dated 1993, and the
only chip besides the scsi bios and some mini-chips, is one marked
as "Trantor t101 j9318ab (c) NSC 1992 pat. pending".

In the docs, the closest thing mentioned is the t-130b, which uses
an ncr 53c400 chip.

If anyone knows which bootdisk or drivers to use, please contact us
or reply on this newsgroup. Thank you.

        I believe the Trantor T160 uses the same driver as the Trantor
T130 only its a 16 bit host adaptor instead of 8 bits. Therefore set
it up as you would a T130, (leave it at its default address, I/O port
and IRQ.) (I had a T130 so I am a little familiar with it.)
        Select the NCR5380 driver with the NCR 53c400 support (For the
bootdisk select the g_5380.s boot disk. At worst you will need to
tell the kernal upon booting the address, I/O port and IRQ in the
bootdisk setup screen.

--

                        B'ichela

Thank you. Someone will try that this weekend, and I'll
post to let you know how well it works out.

Hi. It's just me again.
  Things didn't work so well.
  I ended up being the one to install slackware. By the
time the weekend arrived, everyone else had lost interest.
So here's how it went.

  Maybe there's something I did wrong, or maybe the custom
"T101" chip on the Trantor isn't very compatible with an Ncr
chipset. Someone named Morten Welinder sent me a working
driver for the T-160. But it's for an older kernel and it
would need rewriting and re-compiling. And I'm not sure how
I'd get it re-compiled if I can't get Linux installed in
the first place.

Autodetection didn't work, and I had to give it an irq,
or else the kernel would die without an error message.

I specified port and irq of 0x340,10. That's what it is.
It saw the card and the cd-rom drive ok. But when tried to
use the drive to install slakware, I got this :

scsi0: issue_queue
scsi0: disconnected_queue
scsi0: destination target 2, lun 0
       command= 8 (0x08) 00 00 10 01 00

scsi0: aborting command
scsi0: destination target 2, lun 0
       command= Read (6) 00 00 10 01 00
NCR5380: coroutine isn't running.
STATUS_REG: 07, PARITY, IO, SEL
BASR: 10
ICR: 00
MODE: 00
scsi0: REQ not asserted, phase unknown.

NCR5380 core release=7 ncr53c400 release=2. Generic5380 release 1
base addr: 0x00000     io_port: 0348      irq: 10.
NCR5380: coroutine isn't running.
scsi0: no currently connected command
scsi0: issue_queue
scsi0: disconnected_queue
scsi0: destination target 2, lun 0
       command= 8 (0x08) 00 00 10 01 00

<< at this point the kernel died >>

This happened several times.

        First of all. Does your T160 provide termination power? my
T130b did NOT as trantor cards usually require one to have the
external drives (or the internal ones) to provide power to the
terminators. One can modify that (I did to my T130B). If your external
drive (say the CDROM can supply power for the termination. switch it
on! If you still get a bomb. the next possibility is to tell the
ncr5380 driver NOT to allow disconnects (as I said your error brings
back memories ;*)
        From what I see in
/usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/README.g_ncr5380 I see the following notes
(just an excerpt)

This driver supports both NCR5380 and NCR53c400 cards in port or
memory
mapped modes. Currently this driver can only support one of those
mapping
modes at a time but it does support both of these chips at the same
time.
The next release of this driver will support port & memory mapped
cards at
the same time. It should be able to handle multiple different cards in
the
same machine.

The drivers/scsi/Makefile has an override in it for the most common
NCR53c400 card, the Trantor T130B in its default configuration:
        Port: 0x350
        IRQ : 5

The NCR53c400 does not support DMA but it does have Pseudo-DMA which
is
supported by the driver.

If the default configuration does not work for you, you can use the
kernel
command lines (eg using the lilo append command):
        ncr5380=port,irq,dma
        ncr53c400=port,irq
or
        ncr5380=base,irq,dma
        ncr53c400=base,irq
Looking at the Bootprompt-HOWTO hiding on my slackware 3.5 Cd this is
what I see reguarding ANOTHER 5380 driver based scsi card.
  4.2.16.  Pro Audio Spectrum (`pas16=')

  The PAS16 uses a NCR5380 SCSI chip, and newer models support jumper-
  less configuration. The boot argument is of the form:

  ______________________________________________________________________
          pas16=iobase,irq
  ______________________________________________________________________

This driver on your bootdsks.144 is called
pas16.s Try that instead of the NCR5380 one as that ALSO is a 5380
based card.
        Since we now know that the NCR5380 driver is indeed the right
one now it is just a matter of debbuging the hardware. Heres the steps
I would follow
1. Enable your CDROM to provide the termination power OR modify the
card to do so. My card had lands for the fuse and diode! I just needed
to add them to bring the card up to the later standards of the host
providing termination power.
2. if that bombs try another driver. Check  your IRQs also to make
sure that IRQ 10 is not being used by another device. Perhaps your
network card (my Ne2000 card uses IRQ 10. If possible reassign your
offiending card to another IRQ or reassign to T160 to use another
unused IRQ.
3. if that bombs perhaps its time to get a newer card!

If this same card is working with scsiworks 1.3 then you can be at
least sure that the card is working OK. if that bombs than you KNOW
that the termination/cables or just bum luck it aint working right.
Scsiworks comes with the card for MS-dos or win 3.1. Adaptec bought
trantor and has updated scsi drivers on its website for dos.

--

                        B'ichela

             Message of Jul 23 12:38 pm
(sorry I couldn't quote you, but your message hasn't gotten to
 my news server yet, only as far as remarq.)

  The t-160 is connected to an internal Sony 2x cdrom.
It has a fuse and a diode already installed, but no jumper
to select termination power or not. The cdrom has old
style terminators installed, nothing to select powered or
not.
  The adaptor and drive have been working well from dos &
windows, using the drivers from Ez-scsi 4.
  I just tried a different irq, no difference. There isn't
a net card, just an isa cirrus logic video card.
  I also tried the pas16 driver. It wouldn't load, and
it stopped the boot sequence.
  Disabling disconnects might be possible. But I couldn't
find any kernel-line arguments to do this, and to re-compile
a kernel would need a working linux.

  I guess I'll have to try your last suggestion, and get a
different scsi card. I think I might be able to swap the
t-160 into a pc that has an aha-1510. It only runs windows
anyways. No one should care, but then no one really trusts
me with hardware, either.

  Thanks for trying.

   <a lot of good suggestions, omitted only because it's late >

I tried to post a reply on Sunday afternoon. It disappeared and
was never seen again.

The t-160 already had a fuse and diode. And it has been working
well under dos & windows. I tried the pas16 kernel. No success,
wouldn't load. So I listened to your your last idea, and swapped
the Trantor for an aha-151x/2x (clone?). Same general catagory,
and it's supported by linux.

So now I can spend my time figuring out other things about linux :-)