Adaptec Technical Manuals

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jair

Adaptec Technical Manuals

Post by jair »

Alrighty, I'm trying to work with different SCSI controllers. I am doing this directly, without going through another layer like ASPI.

However, I need the specs for the controller. I've got a couple LSI ones, but nothing for Adaptec cards... I've been reading through the SCSI specs, but I need information about the controller. It doesn't do me any good to know how to put together a SCSI command if I don't know what to do with it :).

So, does anyone have any technical manuals for SCSI controllers? Specifically, I'm looking for info on Adaptec cards.

Thanks for any help!
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Brendan
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Re:Adaptec Technical Manuals

Post by Brendan »

Hi,

There's a few SCSI controller reference manuals available here (but not many):
http://www.osdever.net/cottontail/#SCSI

For Adaptec, I went to their "Adaptec Support Knowledgebase" at:
http://adaptec-tic.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptec_tic.cfg/php/enduser/home.php

Then I selected the "Find answers" link. This will take you to a search page.

On the search page, I set the "Category" to "Manuals and User guides" and put "+Technical +Reference" in the right box (next to the "search" button). This will lead to technical reference manuals for the AHA-1740A series (1740A/1742A/1744). Unfortunately, the APA-1460 is a PCMCIA to SCSI thing, and the AIC-6915 is an ethernet card.

Then I put "1740a_tr.pdf" (the file name for the AHA-1740A technical reference manual) into Google and it found a few other places with Adaptec documentation (none were too useful though).

Unless your SCSI adapter is an AHA-1740A, AHA-1742A or AHA-1744 your chances don't look too good. :(

Asking Adaptec directly (e.g. via. email) might work....


Cheers,

Brendan
For all things; perfection is, and will always remain, impossible to achieve in practice. However; by striving for perfection we create things that are as perfect as practically possible. Let the pursuit of perfection be our guide.
jair

Re:Adaptec Technical Manuals

Post by jair »

Yeh, I found those Adaptec ones while poking around on their ftp. Don't seem to be of much use, but who knows?

Anyways, I was trying to figure things out by going through the linux scsi sources, and came across the driver Adaptec wrote for the kernel. It gave a 1-800 number to call to request a copy of the Adaptec AIC-7770 Data Book. So come Monday I think I'll call them up and see just how much that would cost.
Brendan wrote:Unless your SCSI adapter is an AHA-1740A, AHA-1742A or AHA-1744 your chances don't look too good. :(
Thats what I'm afraid of. It seems every SCSI controller does things its own way. No real stadardization here. I'm hoping that at least most of Adaptec's cards are similar in the way they handle basic functions. Than maybe I can do a per-vender sort of deal.

Thanks for the help!
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