SCSI to IDE

[bwinkel67]

First, apologies if this has been talked about. I did try and search for it first but the search didn't focus on PowerBook's and there were a lot of general results that didn't quite give me what I wanted.

So, I found this on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/280911143406

Would these work in a PowerBook? I'm not sure what a 50pin IDE is since most are 40 pins (or 44 pins for the 2.5 inch drives that add 2 power, 1 ground, and 1 selector line). What are the other 6 pins used for? Anyone try to use these inexpensive SCSI2IDE interface cards in a PowerBook? I've read about SCSI2SD but those seem really expensive ($150 on AliExpress).

(Of course I could also just exchange my PowerBook 180 with a 150 but man, the lack of ADB port really gets me. I don't think you can add a serial mouse on the serial port ...I searched for a serial mouse driver for classic Mac's but couldn't find any. At least the 150 has a passive matrix LCD so no screen tunneling which I haven't quite resolved yet.)

 

[eric]

I'm confused at that eBay listing too, but I dont think it's what you want. Also I wouldn't trade down to a 150 commonly refereed to as the worst powerbook ever!

You may want to consider a PowerBook BlueSCSI. Full disclosure I'm the maintainer of BlueSCSI, though I dont sell any powerbook versions (but others do).

 

[bwinkel67]

I posted the wrong ebay link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265575718055

...but in that description it actually states that the 50 pin IDE can't be used with normal IDE controllers. Curious what those other 6 pins are all about.

 

[luminescentsimian]

That second one is a passive SCSI adapter, so no help there, and it would be way too big to fit into a powerbook.
The first one is for the very-rare outside of pre-touch screen iPods 1.8" drives. They probably had to split the power over more pins than the 44-pin laptop standard because those pins are so small.