abandonware SCSI hologram display, need to connect to PC

[froky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrdWOScCgQ

Don't ask me where I got this, but it's an abandonware holographic display from early 2000s called "Perspecta 1.7" by a company which doesn't exist anymore. If you did some research then no, I didn't pay anywhere near the $30000 original price from 2003.
It connects to a PC via SCSI (never heard of it before, probably because too old). The previous owner gave me the display itself, the CDs for it, the SCSI cable and a PCI SCSI adapter. Other than that, he said he didn't know how to use it and a previous employee in their office used to use it for medical imaging or something.

I installed everything in the CD (program suite, driver), and when I start my PC now with the SCSI PCI adapter connected, I'm given this screen:

Anyone familiar with SCSI has some ideas and suggestions what to try to get the PC recognize the holographic display when they are connected?

PS. I got this device because I want to build my own and wanted to see how good the 3d volume looked in real life before buying the needed parts myself. Already have the code written. The idle screen which shows 2d text looks good, the up-down wobble is because the motor has fallen out of alignment during these years. Anyway, I just wanted to see how a 3d volume would look in real life to decide if its worth spending $1000 on parts and building my own. And I want to build my own as this one doesn't allow to stream videos or animations, it just takes polygons and slowly converts it to voxels. And since the technology is still patentet I'm not and I can't have any financial interests ina project like this so it's going to be an open source hobby project .

 

[Burpo]

"First remove the SCSI cable from each periperal, one at a time, to see if the error goes away. If the error does not occur after disconnecting the SCSI cable from a device, then the device is terminated incorrectly or is defective.
Check (or replace) the SCSI cables and verify that both ends of the SCSI Bus are terminated properly. Reseat all power connectors to the devices."

http://ask.adaptec.com/app/answers/...out-failure-during-scsi-inquiry-command-mean?

I suspect bad hardware or bad contacts, but if the hardware & cable is good, it could be a termination problem.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/scsi4.htm

 

[TheELF]

Your bios is probably trying to boot up from the scsi device since that's what it's main use was, storage devices.
Enter the bios and disable/remove scsi from the boot menu.

How did you even managed to install the software/drivers from 2003? Is it an old PC?

 

[MongGrel]

Never heard of SCSI ?

That's pretty classic it looks.

 

[froky]

the PCI adapter and cables are fine. Latter has been tested both by me and the seller.

my desktop PC was built in 2009. But why shouldn't I have been able to install software and driver from 2003? Has worked for other things, Windows backward compatability and all. That's also talking about my 2010 and 2015 notebooks.

The single page manual of the device says you need to start the device and have it display the default screen before booting your pc otherwise it won't be recognized. Nothing else other than that, like what SCSI settings to chnage/etc.

 

[Mark R]

Do you have the correct cable terminators? SCSI isn't just a plug in system. It's a daisy chain system and both ends need a terminator.

Most cards have an integrated automatic terminator, but not all devices do. Some devices have integrated terminators but they are manual and must be switched on. Some devices don't have terminators and require an external terminator/terminated cable.

For this reason, all SCSI devices have 2 ports. Either both ports must be connected, or termination must be enabled on the device, or an external terminator must be connected.

 

[froky]

I understand now. Like DMX terminators.
I don't recall getting any SCSI terminator type adapter. I'll look in the bios settings of the SCSI adapter (menu which you can boot to before Windows boots) if theres an option for that.
If the issue is not with the terminator, is there something else which is usually checked? Like setting correct "port", "id" or something of that sorts?

 

[pooptastic]

Woah this thing looks pretty rad. Maybe their old CTO might have input for you: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfavalora

I don't know SCSI at all, but maybe he remembers if it needs some specific hardware from 2002-3 or something to be compatible and function correctly.

 

[mrblotto]

I dont think it's trying to boot to SCSI first, but I could be wrong.

What it looks like to me is that the Adaptec BIOS is trying to recognize and initialize the device. Does the holographic device thing do anything when the Adaptec BIOS scans/tries to scan for it? Blink, make a noise, etc?

Like when a SCSI HD is installed in a system via adapter/cable. The BIOS scans for it, then when it finds it, it 'interrogates' it to see what it is, then sends it a command to start/spinup. Possibly it's waiting for the device to do something?

Would the device even be recognized if there was a termination problem? I dont think so.......

How many 'connectors' are on your SCSI cable? Have you tried both connectors on the card (guessing they're channel 'A' and 'B')? Or the external connector?

Anyhow, good luck. I used to have a few servers with loads of 68-pin SCSI drives all RAID'ed up. Was kind of neat hearing them all spin up one at a time. Kinda sounded like a bunch of little jet engines spinning up lol

Good luck!

 

[TheELF]

As far as I'm forgetting SCSI termination was an issue only in the 80' maybe early 90' after that every device was auto terminating.

 

[froky]

I've only tried the external connector.

As for the device, it's pretty ,well, stupid. All it does itself is show it is initialized by displaying a screen with the battery life of the projector lamp. That tells you you can now boot your PC. There's no screen, LED, anything to show if there is a successful connection with the PC on the device itself.

The issue with help from former developers is they have pretty much forgotten the details of the operation of the device themselves. And the seller had an old PC with everything pre-configured also collecting dust, so he didn't know either how to set up on a new machine.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehhh, somewhere I have a bucket of old 50 and 68 pin SCSI stuff.

 

[artvscommerce]

Where did you get this?

Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

[artvscommerce]

delete

 

[froky]

I won it in an auction.
As for the topic itself, haven't touched the device since, very busy with other projects.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Just for anyone curious: The specs on that model look to be -"Texas Instruments 200 MHz processor as CPU, 16 MB of RAM, and a very early model of DDR SDRAM running at 66 MHz dedicated to graphics." They said "it took 45 minutes to position, scale, and render a medical CAT scan."

The newer 1.9 had a AMD64, Nvidia 6800Ultra, and used Dual Gigabit Ethernet to connect to a typical Dell running win XP. and could render "4D (animated) CAT scans of breathing lungs at approximately 4 volumes per second."

What OS are you using? If you are trying it on windows 7 or later, maybe try a fresh install in IDE mode and the card already installed and the perspecta turned on? And have any/all drivers off the disc handy. Maybe it will find it during install.

 

[potzocalli]

I did use SCSI ages ago. If it is a newer device then you just need to plug the card in and make sure it detects it. In this case the CTRL-A should do the trick. Newer devices were autodetect but some have pin switches to give them different IDs.

There was a time where my CD burners (yes, not DVD burners) were SCSI and this was on a home PC.

Check the cables, clean the terminations on the card before inserting to the PCI slot. Check the cable pins for bent or missing pins.

 

[froky]

useless info removed

 

[froky]

Finally have time to come back to this.

Okay, I'm uploading a huge fine photo of the SCSI card. See if that can give some hint.

I tried one of the "inernal" ports on the card as well with no luck. As for the second internal slot, the cable just wouldn't fit, too wide and hits a wall on the card.