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| Author | BlueSCSI getting WiFi (now beta) (Read 119384 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
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on: August 30, 2023, 12:49
Some exciting news regarding the next upcoming version of BlueSCSI, the popular SCSI hard drive replacement. As it turns out, the upcoming version will include Wi-fi support. So you can wireless network your old Quadra without any additional hardware. There will even be a Desk Accessory for easy config of the desired wifi network. I'd call this the best hardware news of 2023 so far. If they can get this to work and sell for a reasonable price (it's in beta status right now) this will be a must-have for every owner of original hardware I believe. Developer Joshua Stein wrote a great blogpost (retro compatible) about the challenge of implementation and the technical details. Good read |
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #1 on: August 30, 2023, 12:55
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I love this! I really need to get my hands on one when they are released. I hope the price is not too steep though.
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cballero
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1024 MB  Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #2 on: August 31, 2023, 01:26
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That really cool  now for an even crazier idea!  Could these BlueSCSI boards be somehow put 'inside' of a Powerbook? What if the floppy drive in the first-gen Powerbooks were swapped out, would that give it enough room? And if it can do wireless, that could potentially make those Powerbooks truly Internet-portable! Well, I'd imagine that it might need it's own (also portable?) power source, but one issue at a time I suppose 
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #3 on: August 31, 2023, 08:14
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I don't have a BlueSCSI (yet) but isn't it just like the SCSI2SD board powered through a floppy drive cable? Why shouldn't it be placed inside? It's small in size. Yes, I think this means you can turn any Macintosh model into a modern Wi-Fi capable one - which is an awesome prospect. I may ditch my PiSCSI (RaSCSI) for that one when it comes out, since I rarely use the PiSCSI's advantages e.g. for CD-ROM emulation etc. At this point, the only thing missing for older PowerBooks are decent replacement batteries. It's really hard to get these. Like I'm looking for reliable ones for a Pismo right now and darn, there's so few offers and then it's a lot of low quality for a too high price.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #4 on: August 31, 2023, 18:52
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Much like these retro SCSI projects, retro batteries would be a great thing to have, even if they cost a little more, not exaggerated amounts, just enough to justify the extra hand-work that it would entail. Then again, could it be that hard to either make some sort of adapter for newer batteries or just recondition old ones somehow? This way, you can use smaller, easily-obtainable batteries and insert those into an older battery case remade to be an adapter. It sounds like a very cool retro-kit opportunity  at least it sounds amazing in concept, you know?  3-D printing battery cases may also be needed as I've seen some of them and the plastics are just giving out (most likely due to the acids inside!!)
Last Edit: August 31, 2023, 18:54 by cballero
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nulleric
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8 MB Posts: 10 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #5 on: September 17, 2023, 16:37
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For sure you can place these inside a PowerBook - we offer a PB board just for this scenario! Since I'm doing dev and testing I usually just use the external port with a DB25 version (note you'd need to power it via USB in this case as the Powerbook does not provide termpower) RE: Price - the Pico-W is only $2 more than the Pico (non-WiFi) so we just charge $2 more. You can always order the PCB's & build them yourself too.
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #6 on: September 18, 2023, 18:59
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Hi nulleric, welcome to the board! Great to have you here ... come and check back here occasionally, please :-) Do you have any estimate yet for when a pre-assembled version will be available? How do you power it inside a classic desktop Mac? Via the SCSI cable alone or via the floppy power cable? Since we got a lot of Europeans here... any plans for distribution in Europe or will it be the usual parcel from the U.S.?
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nulleric
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8 MB Posts: 10 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #7 on: September 19, 2023, 17:16
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> Do you have any estimate yet for when a pre-assembled version will be available? Yes, all sellers on bluescsi.com have that option for wifi. > How do you power it inside a classic desktop Mac? Via the SCSI cable alone or via the floppy power cable? Either/Both - depends on how stable your 5v power is. Note on a compact mac the 5v line of the termpower on the scsi bus and the hdd connector are many times the same, so if it's very low it still wouldnt help. (only a PSU recap would, or power it externally) > Since we got a lot of Europeans here... any plans for distribution in Europe or will it be the usual parcel from the U.S.? OneGeekArmy is in the EU and can ship to any EU country (and non-EU) for resonable (see his shipping FAQ) - Flamelilly is in the UK. Both have been around for quite a while and are great people!
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #8 on: September 20, 2023, 13:05
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Great info! Feels like a must have peripheral for anyone with a Classic Mac.
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #9 on: September 21, 2023, 12:38
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>OneGeekArmy is in the EU and can ship to any EU country (and non-EU) for resonable (see his shipping FAQ) - Flamelilly is in the UK Useful! I'd been looking at SCSI solutions for a while but couldn't justify the expense. I found http://bluescsi.flamelily.co.uk/uk (modern browsers only) and the pricing is much more palatable. Especially given that I have a soldering iron...
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #10 on: May 13, 2024, 09:25
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Resurrecting this thread  After my Oldnet Wi-Fi modem adventures I've decided to move on and buy a BlueSCSI with WiFi for my IIci. Somebody else using one yet? I'm seeing mixed results. Otto Reverse on the Captain's Quarters II BBS just yesterday posted about random freezes ever since putting one in. Others don't seem to have trouble. Who of you is using one and what has been your experience so far?
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garambo
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16 MB Posts: 29 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #11 on: May 13, 2024, 10:12
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I've been using a BlueSCSI v2 with WiFi on my Macintosh SE FDHD for almost 6 months and my experience has been seamless. I'm so happy with it that I got an external DB25 unit for restoring and testing old systems and a Powerbook version for my PB 190 (project halted at the moment due to a broken screen). Something that I love about it is the ease of switching images, which I can build easily with Disk Jockey, personalize quickly with an emulator such as Mini vMac and enjoy on real hardware in just minutes. Speaking of my SE, running System 7.1 with MacTCP, I haven't experienced crashes so far, using the DaynaPORT SCSI emulation works great. Of course the transfer speed is heavily dependent on the bus (and CPU), for example, the average transfer speed using Fetch is around 7500 bytes/second. Works with basic browsing too! I posted a picture of MacWeb working on the SE on the RetroSearch thread picture here 145KB JPGI also set up Netatalk 2.3 on my home server, with the right configuration I was really impressed to be able to use the same file sharing server across machines almost 40 years apart!
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #12 on: May 13, 2024, 11:11
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I luv tinkering with vintage hardware. Its like tuning your old Mustang vs. trying to fiddle around with a Tesla. Most modern day systems can't even be opened w/o specialty tools - much less altered without "original components". Who believes that in 10-20 years there will be anyone bothering to run a vintage forum for 2024 hardware?
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #13 on: May 13, 2024, 13:10
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I do not know, people can be very crafty when they put their minds to it. Just the other day I was reading about a hack where a fellow made a USB connector by soldering onto a keyboard ribbon cable, enabling them to add another bootable drive to a machine with fixed soldered storage. It was noted that tablet touch screens are generally tied to a USB controller, so the technic could be modified for other devices as well. A TiBook is closer in era to a Mac Plus than it is to an M3 MacBook, I would guess that in 30 years people will be cherishing their ancient M1 Minis as much as people today cherish their of IIci. Grandkids with always be asking how did you get anything done, when all you had was clay tablets.
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #14 on: May 13, 2024, 18:29
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i was born in 2004 so besides a GameBoy stuff before the wii/ps3/360 really isn't nostalgic to anybody my age or really any millennial's born after 2000 @68040 people here are using system 7 machines mostly nostalgia minus really just me so i can see people in 40 years who were born in the mid-late 2010's building a S7T-esque forum for big sur or whatever (more likely mojave or catalina) i like tiger as my aunt had a imac we would play coolmathgames on it i got that imac in 2019 (mid 2007 20") as it was just "sitting around" i had a teachers assistant that was still using jaguar on a powerbook 12" in like 2009-early 2010 and i got to play some zoombini game on it but before 2019 that was the extent of my mac usage as we had a xp box at home and eventually a dell box running windows 7 then 10 and once i moved north the schools had xp on all there pc's in the tech labs/classroom's/library's
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