ZuluSCSI Blaster Quick Start Guide

You've just received your new ZuluSCSI Blaster board from Rabbit Hole Computing. Now what?

Step 1: Prep your SD card

Load your SD card with at least one disk image. If you do not have an existing source image file, you can create one for yourself with the SD card inserted in to a modern computer, or instruct the ZuluSCSI to do so for you, by creating an empty text file on the SD card, with the following naming convention: Create 1024M HD0.txt

If the firmware detects such a file, upon initialization (power up), it will attempt to create an image file of the type and SCSI ID defined in the text file. Depending on the size of the requested image file, this may take a while. It's generally best to start with smaller image files, especially if you're unfamiliar with this process, as many older operating systems have their own limitations when it comes to maximum supported disk sizes.

Make sure that you name it appropriately based on the device it's representing as well as its ID number on the SCSI bus. If you're using a hard drive image, name the image HD0.img, and if it's an optical drive image, name it CD0.iso or CD0.bin and CD0.cue depending on which format it's in. Alternatively, the ZuluSCSI firmware can create an unformatted image file for you if you

Plug the SD card into the slot on the ZuluSCSI board. Assuming one or more image files are detected, the LED will blink once.

Step 2: Prep the ZuluSCSI board

Plug the 50-pin ribbon cable, or adapter, into the ZuluSCSI Blaster

The DIP switch block has three DIP switches:

1. INITIATOR: Initiator mode allows you to use your ZuluSCSI to capture an image of all SCSI devices currently in your system. This DIP switch must be on the off position for the ZuluSCSI to be detected as a storage device. If it is accidentally enabled, it will not be detected, and its SCSI ID will likely conflict with the SCSI ID of the SCSI controller of the attached machine.
2. DEBUG LOG: If on, produce a debug log to a text file called zululog.txt that gets placed in the root directory of your SD card. This will negatively affect disk performance, but produces log output that is far more verbose, and far more useful for troubleshooting problems.
3. TERM: Termination on/off. If your device is the last one on the bus, or the only one on the bus, turn this switch on.

If your device doesn't provide termination power, such as a Mac IIsi, you'll need to provide bus power to it either connecting power to the 4-pin Molex floppy power connector on your board or alternatively by attaching a USB cable to the port on the front of the board.

If you are looking to mount your ZuluSCSI Blaster internally, the four mounting holes on the ZuluSCSI Blaster board are designed to line up with the bottom holes of any 2.5" hard drive footprint. Any standard 2.5"-to-3.5" mounting adapter can fit the mounting holes on a ZuluSCSI board using M3 screws.

If you want to have an external activity LED, you can populate footprint J304 on the board with a standard 0.1" pin header and run a case LED to this header for that purpose. The cathode (negative) end of the LED is marked by a C on the board.

Step 3: Turn on your device!

Once you've prepared the SD card and attached your ZuluSCSI to the cable and host computer, switch things on and go! Your ZuluSCSI should be recognized by your SCSI controller, and the device will mount images as described above, and you should see your device(s) populate in your system.

Troubleshooting

If something isn't working as expected, first examine the zululog.txt file that the ZuluSCSI firmware writes to your SD card. If no such file is present, check to see if the activity LED is flashing five times, then repeating. This indicates that no SD card was detected.

Troubleshooting LED blink codes

During normal operation, the LED indicator normally flashes to indicate disk activity.

Upon initial power-on, the activity LED also reports following status conditions:

• 1 fast blink on boot: Firmware successfully loaded, and at least one image file loaded successfully
• 3 fast blinks: No images found on SD card, and then automatically falls back to raw passthrough mode.
• 5 fast blinks: SD card not detected
• Continuous morse pattern: firmware crashed, morse code indicates crash location

If a crash occurs, the firmware will also attempt to save information to a separate zuluerr.txt log file, on the root of the SD card.

If you encounter problems or unexpected behavior, please refer to the full manual, or you can e-mail support [at] zuluscsi.com. If you do choose to e-mail us, please be specific about what your problem is, what you expect to happen, and ideally also let us know which firmware version you are using, if you know. This information is logged to the zululog.txt file every time your ZuluSCSI is powered on.

Further reference material

Please refer to the full ZuluSCSI Manual for further information and details.

Also see this example zuluscsi.ini file