Upgrading The Computer You've Already Got: SCSI's Fussy

With the Power Mac G5 in pretty good shape, I decided over the weekend to turn my attention back to its older Power Mac G4 sibling. As you may recall from prior posts in this series, this particular system will have a fairly narrow anticipated use case; it’ll interface to and act as a temporary repository for images coming from my two SCSI scanners.

Specifically, I own a Polaroid SprintScan 4000, which as its name implies scans my voluminous pre-digital-transition archive of 35mm negatives and slides at up to 4,000 dpi true (i.e. non-interpolated) resolution:

And the first-generation Minolta (later Konica Minolta) DiMAGE Scan Multi, which tackles 35mm content at up to 2,820 dpi, as well as medium-format material from my Pentax 67 at 1,128 dpi:

Both scanners are quite old, although lightly used. And fortunately, considering that both manufacturers have withdrawn from this particular business (Konica Minolta via transfer to Sony, and Polaroid due to the first of several bankruptcy filings), the scanners’ bulbs, mechanics, etc. still work! I began my effort by tethering the DiMAGE Scan Multi standalone to the computer.

My Power Mac G4 contains an Adaptec PowerDomain 2930U PCI add-in card. It’s listed as an obsolete product on Adaptec’s website, and the latest-available v1.1 driver dates from the OS 10.1 days (and was bundled with the OS beginning with OS 10.2), but my Internet research gave me confidence that I’d be fine through OS 10.3. I booted the system, powered on the scanner, fired up System Profiler, clicked on the SCSI information page link to peruse the chain…and saw nothing.

This is the embarrassing part of the story. Suspecting a misconnected or faulty SCSI cable, I turned to the backside of both the scanner and the computer. As it turns out, I’d remembered to connect both ends of the scanner’s AC cord, and I’d also connected the SCSI cable to the scanner…but I’d forgotten to connect the SCSI cable’s other end to the Adaptec 2930U in the computer. I did so, then quit and re-launched System Profiler…and still saw nothing.

A quick check of Google search results educated me that SCSI peripherals need to be fully powered up prior to booting the computer in order to be seen, so I completely shut down the computer, booted it back up, launched System Profiler…and still saw nothing.

Back to Google, where I uncovered indications that I might have better success with Adaptec’s earlier v1.0.2 driver. I installed it, rebooted the system, launched System Profiler…and still saw nothing. Since this particular fix attempt wasn’t successful, I uninstalled the v1.0.2 driver and put the v1.1 driver back in its stead.

Then I remembered about the need to terminate the devices on both ends of the SCSI chain. I don’t have a SCSI mass storage device or other peripheral installed within the Power Mac G4; fortunately a perusal of the 2930U User Guide (PDF) assured me that the board automatically terminated the internal bus in such cases. Then I hit up the Multi Scan Hardware Manual and realized that its relevant DIP switch wasn’t correctly set. After enabling its bus termination, I rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and the DiMAGE Scan Multi finally appeared.

Bolstered by my success, I then connected the SprintScan 4000 to the DiMAGE Scan Multi, powered up the Polaroid device, rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and saw only the DiMAGE Scan Multi, not the Sprint Scan 4000.

After pondering the situation for a few minutes, I realized I needed to re-disable SCSI chain termination on the DiMAGE Scan Multi, since it was no longer the last device on the bus. I did so, rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and not only was the SprintScan 4000 still not there, the DiMAGE Scan Multi had also disappeared!

After tossing out a few choice colorful words, I remembered the SprintScan 4000’s termination setting. It was, of course, disabled. After enabling it, since it was now at the end of the SCSI chain, I rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and neither scanner was still visible.

What’s next? As a temporary simplification step, I removed the DiMAGE Scan Multi from the middle of the chain, rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and the SprintScan 4000 appeared, so I was assured that it was functional. Reconnecting everything as before, however, caused both scanners to again disappear.

Ahhh…SCSI IDs. As it turned out, both scanners happened to be set to ID #5. I changed the SprintScan 4000 to ID #7, rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and the DiMAGE Scan Multi was back, but the SprintScan 4000 was still gone.

Revisiting the 2930U User Guide, I realized that its own ID was factory pre-set to #7. So I changed the SprintScan 4000 to ID #6, rebooted the computer, launched System Profiler…and both scanners were finally listed. Hamrick Software’s outstanding VueScan program also sees and controls both of them.

Words can’t describe how much I detest SCSI Although I resent a bit that Adaptec and Apple dropped support in favor of the USB and FireWire successors beginning with OS 10.4, my experience gave me a taste of what a support nightmare SCSI must have been for both companies, thereby tempering my disappointment with this particular corporate triage decision.

By the way, speaking of software, if you’re also a DiMAGE Scan Multi user you’ll also probably find yourself on the archive of the Konica Minolta support site. There, you’ll be told that DiMAGE Scan v1.1.4 is the latest-available version for this particular scanner (although if you click through to more recent scanner models, you’ll also find references to newer v1.1.5 and v1.1.6). And if you download v1.1.4, you’ll end up with a file 5 MBytes smaller than it’s supposed to be, one that defies all attempts to decompress it with ‘invalid archive’, ‘unexpected end-of-file’ and other cryptic error messages.

After an hour on the phone with Sony support this morning, I was redirected to Konica Minolta’s European support site, which contradicts its U.S. peer in reporting that DiMAGE Scan v1.1.5 works just fine with the DiMAGE Scan Multi I. And v1.1.5 also decompresses just fine. I’ll confirm the functional claim after I install Adobe Photoshop, thereby enabling me to evaluate the DiMAGE Scan plug-in, but I’m cautiously optimistic. And as earlier mentioned, I’ve always got Hamrick’s VueScan as a backup.

Sigh.