Setting up SCSI-Link network on Atari

There are several networking solutions for the Atari ST/Falcon series, and the two solution I obtained for my Falcon are

• 1. ENEC Ethernet adapter using NE2000 compatible Ethernet card

  2. DaynaPORT Pocket SCSI/Link SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter

The DaynaPORT Pocket SCSI/Link Ethernet adapter solution is document here.

The hardware setup is just a matter of connecting the SCSI cable into the DB-25 of the adapter. It also have a Mac style HDI-30 SCSI port which is of no use to the Atari Falcon. This can be left unconnected. On the Ethernet side, the DaynaPort Pocket SCSI/Link Ethernet adapter supports both RJ-45 (10Base-T) and BNC (10Base-2) cable. Connect the BNC cable into the BNC port via a T-joint. Making sure that the 50-ohm network terminator is attached at both end of the network cable.

The default SCSI-ID or number is set at 3 and terminated. This means that the device is automatically terminated and you cannot daisy-chain another device on to it. If you are daisy-chaining other SCSI device, make sure you select unused SCSI-ID and no termination.

Plug in the power supply and the adapter is ready to use.

Anodyne SCSI/Link device drivers

The key to the using SCSI/Link is Anodyne device driver. Download it from the Anodyne software web site. There is driver support for both MiNT and STiNG.

Software setup : Anodyne SCSI/Link device drivers for TOS - STING

In the STING archive, there are 3 files - 2 programs and 1 text file. Read the text file for a better understanding of the driver, SCSILINK.STX. The other file SLSTINGX.TTP is a test program that checks the statistics of the device. This program will show you whether the SCSI/Link is indeed working or not.

STING is required and can be downloaded from the STING download pages. Setup STING according to the instructions. Nothing special is needed. Copy the SCSILINK.STX into the folder where all the other STX files are located. Just reboot to load this driver.

Enable SCSI arbitration in HDDriver so that the SCSI/Link is detected by HDDriver.

The STING configuration is pretty generic, some idea on how to setup can be found in the STING setup for ICS.

Software setup : Anodyne SCSI/Link device drivers for MiNT

As with the STING archive, there are 3 files. The SCSILINK.XIF file is the network interface driver and should be copied into the Mint folder with the other XIF files, normally would be the y-xx-cur folder, where y-xx is the release version of Mint. At the point of writing that would be 1-17-cur folder. Make sure that INET.XDD is also located at the same folder as this is the internet protocol daemon for Mint.

With the software installed, you now need to configure some files:

1. /etc/domainname - This text file contains the domain name of your home.

2. /etc/hostname - This text file contains the hostname of the computer.

3. /etc/resolve.conf - This file contains the domain name and the name server ip address.

4. /etc/services - This file contains the well known port addresses of internet services - do not edit

5. /etc/protocols - This file contains the available protocol on this system - do not edit

• You can download these files from here.

• You may change the contents of domainname and hostname according to your home network.

• You may need to change the nameserver in side the file resolve.conf to the IP Address of your router if 8.8.8.8 ( Google DNS) don't work.

The network interface is now configured. To execute the network interface run the following lines at the command line (tcsh for example):

$ ifconfig en0 addr 192.168.0.228 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

and set the default route

$ route add default en0 gw 192.168.0.1 metric 1

If your router does not route back internal IP addresses, you may need to set internal routing in your Atari. To do this run the following:

$ route add 192.168.0.0 en0

These 3 lines should be added into the startup file of Mint (MINT.CNF) so that it is executed at startup, before calling the AES.

Alternatively, you may setup DHCP for auto configuration of network in Mint. How to do this is written in the Mint OS section of this site.

Have Fun!!