Ebay listing that made me chuckle

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

And there it is... I set the Hitachi PATA drive to "Master" or "Device 0". The entire PATA is largely untested, but you can see. Note: SCSI ID = 4, which means bus = 3.
SCSI ID = 0: SATA port 0.
SCSI ID = 1: skipped.
SCSI ID = 2: SATA port 1.
SCSI ID = 3: skipped.
SCSI ID = 4: PATA port, "master"
SCSI ID = 5: PATA port, "slave"

The performance is of course less, than of SSD with the same controller.
But as I recall, the number of transactions on VIADuct3 with above hard drive is higher than on SeriTek/1SE2 with SSD.
I will re-test it later.

ATAPI compatibility is not checked yet.
So I think, Tratkazir_the_1st indeed may order that controller for $300 on eBay, ooops, I mean, for Rbl 300 from a local dealer. Paying Rbl 300 or $300 is not the same thing. 😂🤣

But who knows... we may see the "Hong Kong Pirate" from eBay showing up soon - and buying all that stock.

As for controller family name: at last it became "ParSATA".

The first version was "PSATA", but unfortunately in RU-BY-UA-SRB-HR it sounds awful, something a bit like being a dog.

The second version was "SPATA", which in Germany would promote some sort of beer (political correctness is important, no promotion of alcohol), in English-speaking world would encourage the user to spit on the product.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

This is used mainly in exUSSR countries (I live in Russia). In Europe & USA it is called as WOW2 AFAIK.

BTW: you never know, where FirmTek is. Sometimes it could be literally just before your nose!

 

[B S Magnet]

BTW: you never know, where FirmTek is. Sometimes it could be literally just before your nose!

View attachment 2198688 View attachment 2198693 View attachment 2198695

I imagine folks don’t tend to see a lot of North American-plated vehicles on the roads over there.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

I imagine folks don’t tend to see a lot of North American-plated vehicles on the roads over there.

They get slowly used to that. But at least a humble + slow Toyota Prius "V" gets some looks!

 

[B S Magnet]

They get slowly used to that. But at least a humble + slow Toyota Prius "V" gets some looks!

Aren’t Toyota also selling the whole Prius series in Europe, including the C and the V models?

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Aren’t Toyota also selling the whole Prius series in Europe, including the C and the V models?

Not with THAT kind of license plate
The now-extinct US "Prius V" is called here Prius "+".
One of the most popular cars in Mongolia and all Ukrainian cops + cabbies have it.
Less common in RU and EU, the reason is the price.

Good for me - there is plenty of spare parts.

BTW: the demise of "SPATA" PCI card name in favor or "ParSata" is largely "thanks" to political alcohol-correctness in H/PL/RU/UA/BY/NO.

Norway said to be most tough, but the rest has "zero tolerance" and they mean it very seriously. There is no D/L test question like "how many drinks are allowed before you are legally drunk" because the answer is way to simple: "none, at least 8 hours before you are behind the steering wheel" 😀

The new vodka-proposal is not very kind on drunkards either... Just in addition to the "Zero Tolerance" of course.
Some other countries like France mandate alcohol-test equipment to be in the car, but the cops here seem to be less strict... as long as one is 100% sober. My wife actively supports MADD even after we moved to Europe - so not the cops and not the judge are who I am afraid the most.😱

On the other hand "ParSATA" sounds like "Parth" (see "Parthian Shot"), which is kind of macho and glorious thing.
At least in Central / East / Southern Europe. Comparable to something like "longbow" in England.
Of course for Parthian (= "Persian", did anyone realize it?) shot the bowmen needed a very different bow.

In any case, "Parthian Shot", or, say, "Longbow" does not smell suspiciously like "Spaten Oktoberfest" and is politically safe.

 

[B S Magnet]

Not with THAT kind of license plate
The now-extinct US "Prius V" is called here Prius "+".
One of the most popular cars in Mongolia and all Ukrainian cops + cabbies have it.
Less common in RU and EU, the reason is the price.

Per Wikipedia, they’re also known as the Prius-alpha in Japan. I have learnt a few things on this day.

Despite not owning a car personally, I have driven one of these, out of necessity. In fact, the Prius-V remains the only Prius I’ve ever driven.

Back in 2014, a ride share I hired, for a five-hour, intercity mid-winter night drive, got drowsy behind the wheel (with about 90 minutes left on the excursion). I persuaded the driver, successfully, to allow me to drive the remainder of the distance to the originally agreed-upon destination in town (I was licensed, obv). We got there later than planned (on account of their stopping twice earlier to pick up and drink more coffee from drive-thrus). I think the driver had made the trip between these cities twice earlier in the day, so by the time our journey began, they’d been on the road for something like 10–12 hours.

I mostly remember my portion of the drive being uneventful mercifully (as my watching them nod off and drift was freaking me out) — save for letting them have a cat nap and then chatting with them for about the last half-hour before destination. I think that Prius-V was either white or silver.

Good for me - there is plenty of spare parts.

Supply chain issues are still mostly okay there in (what looks to be) Ukraine?

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Supply chain issues are still mostly okay there in (what looks to be) Ukraine?

Yes, either Poland or UA. The ultimate source is probably the same (UA), except that getting parts from PL via courier is easier. On the other side, getting parts from UA personally is easier (language + distance + price).
Neither is far away.

Last time the driver side door was damaged because of my fault.

Turned out the cheapest way was to replace it with Ukrainian one, straight from Poland. The "donator" was probably either a cab or a cop vehicle. Still $1500...

The middle picture is from Ukraine tho, the car being loaded on the train in Uzhgorod, on it's way to Russia.
Before the COVID insanity and the military conflict of course.

But talking about pictures: only the middle is from UA. The other two are from Suzdal

Suzdal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The most interesting (from architectural point of view) is the picture of world's east-most gothic church.
There is still a debate, is that a "neo-gothic" church (because it was built very late) or "real" gothic (because it was built way before the "neo" style became popular). So, let's call it "retro-gothic", like MacOS "9" is today.

But where it is? And of course there is THAT suspicious Toyota next to it. And what do I see if I turn 180 degrees?

>>>"And what do I see if I turn 180 degrees"

Pick one:

1) A not-so-secret (anymore) military (not-any-more) airport, earlier an Air Force test facility, eons ago not unlike Area 51.
2) A design bureau where most MiG fighter airplanes were tested.
3) A place where I was "designed".
4) A maternity hospital belonging to the airplane design bureau where I was born (even that I am not an airplane).
5) All the above.

 

[m1maverick]

We have a great victory for the anniversary of the great victory in the Great Patriotic War... I.e. May 9, 1945.
This is the VIA 6421A card. Now fully supporting SATA hot-swap.

View attachment 2198479

Is it me or does the Y-axis make no sense? It starts at 25503, increases to 51006, and increases again to 76509 before decreasing to 10201?

 

[Amethyst1]

Is it me or does the Y-axis make no sense? It starts at 25503, increases to 51006, and increases again to 76509 before decreasing to 10201?

It's just omitting the sixth digit; the number is supposed to be 4 × 25,503 = 102,012.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

It's just omitting the sixth digit; the number is supposed to be 4 × 25,503 = 102,012.

Correct, the benchmark does not expect numbers that high.

 

[Amethyst1]

Correct, the benchmark does not expect numbers that high.

The joy of throwing ridiculously overpowered hardware at unsuspecting software.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

The joy of throwing ridiculously overpowered hardware at unsuspecting software.

Tsk, tsk. Otherwise we may see the "local338" ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/264812274223 ) visiting the area with a large (empty) bag. And leaving with a full one. Don't forget, HK sponsors both foreign tourists and own citizens flying to foreign countries with fairly big pool of free airplane tickets. God forbid, "local338" will get an idea.
Or two ideas. 🇩🇪🇷🇺
8 Euro for combo VIA6421A (SATA + PATA + USB) or Rbl 300 ($4) for a single chip (SATA + PATA). Yikes.

But look at the picture #9, he forgot to photoshop the SeriTek/1S2 out. It's there!🤣
Not only a pirate - but a moron pirate. Except that according some sources his regulator work is not bad.

Anyway, "local338" getting a free airplane ticket (for me) is not a very funny idea, this is why (the total for that combo is under $15). But nothing beats Hungary - I got a single-chip VIA6421A card there for HUF 1000, thrown at me by a computer dismantling facility. HUF 1000 ( = $2.90) nicely beats Rbl 300 ( = $4). That card is not on the picture - but like the "green" one it has 4MBit ROM chip. The ROM space of the VIA card is only 64KB, but their API-s allow me to read data from the area not seen in PCI.

The "Russian" card has SST49LF004B which is only 64KB.
The "German" card has Atmel AM29F010, which is better (128KB).

I just verified, I can fit in 64KB without "X". The "X" can be loaded into /System/Extensions.

(Earlier had seniority moment, confused myself into thinking that SST49LF004B is 4 MegaBit. No, it's only 512.)

But that's how eBay should be!

You see the VIA 6214L USB 2.0 chip next to the 6421 ParSATA chip on the "German" card, don't you?
They did it without performance-killer PCI bridge, by combining two functions. Function #0 is ParSATA, Function #1 is USB 2.0.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a proper USB driver for Mac OS "9" with VIA 6214L support (yet).
But it works on "X" well.

 

[TheShortTimer]

The joy of throwing ridiculously overpowered hardware at unsuspecting software.

As I did with my P4 3.6Ghz PC against Win98SE.

It was described at the time as overkill.

 

[Amethyst1]

It was described at the time as overkill.

There is no such thing.

 

[weckart]

£10 seems to be the cheapest on eBay UK for the 6421A at the moment, which is fine. Unfortunately, all the cards from local sellers seem to have a sticker over the EEPROM chip, so I can't see what the capacity is but they look to be the same size and shape as on the German card. One seller in China has it unstickered and it is the 28SF040, which is a 512K chip. No guarantee that others will have the same chip.

Except for this one, which seems to dispense with the EEPROM altogether. Very strange. Quite a few of these for sale. Could be a bummer if bulk sellers aren't distinguishing between the card editions.



Also, don't buy this card below. I don't think it offers value for money.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

£10 seems to be the cheapest on eBay UK for the 6421A at the moment, which is fine. Unfortunately, all the cards from local sellers seem to have a sticker over the EEPROM chip, so I can't see what the capacity is but they look to be the same size and shape as on the German card. One seller in China has it unstickered and it is the 28SF040, which is a 512K chip. No guarantee that others will have the same chip.

Except for this one, which seems to dispense with the EEPROM altogether. Very strange. Quite a few of these for sale. Could be a bummer if bulk sellers aren't distinguishing between the card editions.

View attachment 2198972

Also, don't buy this card below. I don't think it offers value for money.

View attachment 2198976

It's precisely 200 times more, than the same card in Russia.😂🤣
Except that the later is spanking new, not "opened - never used".

A typical case of a moron seller.

The difference between the 64K ROM and larger is that the user would need to install the macOS-X driver "by hand" before the card becomes bootable. I verified yesterday, the size of the Open Firmware + LZAri unpacker in OF + MacOS "9" SIM (packed) is way under 64K.

The ROM space is limited by the ASIC to 64KB anyway, the extra space is interesting if I make a "macOS-X driver sucker" which can "suck" out the code from the hidden ROM space above the 64K. Maybe not even worth the effort.

Very well could be that a minimal USB stick holding the macOS-X driver is cheaper than the 128K (or larger) ROM.
And you need that only once.

 

[weckart]

The difference between the 64K ROM and larger is that the user would need to install the macOS-X driver "by hand" before the card becomes bootable. I verified yesterday, the size of the Open Firmware + LZAri unpacker in OF + MacOS "9" SIM (packed) is way under 64K.

What's the story behind the ROMless cards, though? Does the actual VIA chip itself store the SATA firmware and the additional EEPROM is for RAID functions etc?

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

These are stored in the ROM. A card without ROM can't be made bootable, only if paired with an other card which has ROM (or if the boot code is stored in some form on the motherboard).

Maybe that's precisely the agenda: the PC BIOS of these cards could have host of problems and the seller does not want to provide any support.

The other agenda is "nickel-and-dime"-ing, saving few measly Cents - but losing a lot of customers.

The third reason is just sheer incompetence.

All three are quite frequent.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

One seller in China has it unstickered and it is the 28SF040, which is a 512K chip.

My "Hungarian" card for 1000 HUF came with the same 512K chip, but I can't verify it right now, I am not there.
It looks very different from the other cards. Picture will be posted in maybe two weeks.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I'm a seasoned eBay veteran but the seller's stance still bemuses me.

They have no time to test the computers, even to just power them up and see what happens? I doubt that very much. Rather, they don't want to confirm outright that the items are dead or have problems - in preference of describing them as "untested." 9 out of 10 times that I've asked people/organisations questions about an item or to check/test it for me to the best of their ability, they've always obliged. If they refuse, that's an instant red flag.

 

[Amethyst1]

They have no time to test the computers, even to just power them up and see what happens? I doubt that very much.

Yeah. The “no negative feedback” nonsense is another red flag.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Upon some examination I think, the eternal king of eBay morons is my "friend" from Hong Kong.

No matter, where he may visit me (USA, Russia, border region between France and Germany, Hungary) I have to provide him a king-like reception (champagne, foie gras, caviar, you name it). Here I am sarcastic of course.

Here is the reason, why.

There are two "nice" listings currently. I called eBay countless times, had few chat sessions as well - so far nothing helped. They not only do not want to remove the seller - they don't want to remove these listings as well. Chat sessions were recorded and eBay sent them to me by e-mail. Judge(s) will appreciate it.

This is not USA, acting like that eBay incriminates itself as "supporting a crime" and of course, makes itself liable for all the damage they did. I am going to act not as eBay user (so their user agreements are null and void) - but as (at least) part-time resident of Hungary and applying Hungarian law in local court. Going to be $300K - $400K.

Anyway, but what is the deal with these two listings and why my friend is the king of morons?

2 Port SATA PCI Controller Card Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *OS X *OS9 SSD | eBay

RAID Support at OS X Disk utility.

www.ebay.com

4 Port SATA II PCI-X Controller Card *Apple PowerMac G4/G5 *OS X Bootable *SSD | eBay

RAID Support at OS X Disk utility.

www.ebay.com

a) Take a look at the 266239236983. It is obvious that the driver is from FirmTek, the way it shows up is quite unique.
But the version is... ROFL - 5.3.2b2, from 06/27/2008, generated at 11:59:46.
I mean: it is "BETA 2". I would never ever put anything "beta" on eBay. Even worse: it is obviously an EARLY beta.

b) The SeriTek/1S2 is even worse. I already wrote that Mr. Moron forgot to photoshop me out. At least on the picture before the last one, here it is again:

You can clearly see the "SeriTek/1S2" on the blue line.

But the version string is "SeriTek/1S2 v.5.3.1b1 11/02/07, 23:24:45"

That means... probably the most pirated firmware on the Mac is a "BETA 1".

So please, please. Do not continue experiments with regulators, soldering, SSD-s and so on.
Please accept the fact: that firmware is "BETA 1", the very first in-house release.

It is NOT the release SeriTek/1S2 was to be sold commercially.

How Mr. Moron HK. Pirate got that version - no idea. He (and through him eBay) still damaged me about $300K - $400K and certainly the Hungarian court will be involved, at least what concerns eBay.
Since eBay has entities all over European Union, a Hungarian verdict is as good for me as a verdict in Santa Clara county.

But as far as the Mac community: I do not intent to deal with any follow-up of the 5.3.1 "beta 1".
Instead, I am at 6.0.0b21 right now - and far from being done.

If anyone wants, in form of System Extension (currently "9" only) I can post that here.
But it is still "Beta". Better to say, "in-house Beta".

You may want it only as a proof, that I am not joking. Otherwise: you waited over 15 years for the update.
Why not wait few more months?

As I wrote earlier, this will be called "SImagic2", not "UltraSuperDuperTec/1SMG/X45-E67Z" (or similar).

And while following the spirit of the old deeds, it's 2023 and not 2007. So it's completely new.
With cross-compilers, new tools, new hardware.

Inside information regarding the later:

1) The current development is done on a "Black Cylinder" MacPro, using 10.13.6.
Looking forward maybe to move to Apple Silicon, sitting on the fence.

2) The core of everything (actually, I am not a great hero warrior or patriot - but it feels nice tho) is Parallels.
The Parallels I am using is 17.1.1, strictly for Intel - but supporting Snow Leopard.

3) In the past 15 years I "developed" a bad habit being dependent on 43" or even larger monitors.
It's an eyesight problem. Importance of that "Cylinder" (and the Parallels) is that it can support multiple large monitors. And I have no problem to use Snow Leopard in an insane resolution, which is far beyond any graphics card it would use natively.

4) I am really stuck to Snow Leopard, probably forever. Because that's the last macOS which can launch PPC applications. And the most crucial PPC application for everything is... CodeWarrior 5.5.4 Build 1809.
I hacked the entire CW toolchain that I can create both (non-working!) KEXT and (very well working!) SIM.

All the KEXT-s are built proper Apple compilers, the earliest KEXT debugging is done on Tiger, the latest (of different PCIe hardware) on latest & greatest X and post-X versions of the macOS.

But editing is still largely on CW (even for KEXT-s!) simply because the compilation speed, fonts, UI is unmatched even today. Of course, if it is about SIM than CW is the pretty single choice (if you want to work on "X").


And one thing I have to confirm: using Mac OS "9" emulator (max. 9.0.2 tho) the maximum resolution I was able to "squeeze" out of Mac OS "9" was... 3840 x 2160. I am trying to "convince" the emulator to work on the second display (3440 x 1440, UWQHD).

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Forgot to tell, just switched from Apple's old tokenizer (works on "9" only) to the one from Stefan Reinauer, the current version is 0.6.5, the sources are public.

I just re-compiled it with XCode under Snow Leopard and it (almost) works.

Almost - because it does not seem to be OK with something in the FCode sources (maybe line ends?)
So I had to re-do that and it seem to (at least) tokenize everything.

I did not test the result yet, so that's why no firmware image.

Than, I have to make all the firmware updaters for "9" new.

The new updaters for "X" were made a while ago, but have to change the UI.
The "9" updater has to match that.

Back in 1997 - 2008 every new HBA project "generated" a series of updaters, fork-movers and hell-knows what.
Maintaining it was a hell. Around 2014 I realized how to change that, made a pilot project around 2019 using the previous work - and saved the @ss of few people across EU who bought certain NVMe drives with bad firmware.

So yes, NVMe firmware can be updated, too.

Now it's time to re-apply that to "9".

In that spirit, this will happen in the future:

- There will be only ONE firmware update utility, either "X" or "9".
- There will be very little changes on "X" or "post-X" because the involved drivers have all the tools inside to update the firmware.
- On "9" it is not decided yet. The main problem (and benefit) of "9" that the hardware can be plug-and-play because the "9" driver is (normally) embedded in the ROM image (Open Firmware). The benefit is obvious, the problem was already discussed above: on VIA6421A we have only 64KB ROM space dedicated by the chip itself. So even if you put a 512KB chip, only the first 64KB will be "seen".
VIA6421A has the benefit that while the PCI can't see more, than the first 64KB, the chip itself can address enormous space well beyond that. Therefore a well-written Open Firmware driver (on any sort of BIOS) can take advantage of that. But not all ASIC-s are capable doing that trick.

Because of this, any "flashing" code embedded into "9" driver ("SIM") takes extra space of the sparse ROM resources.
"X" or "post-X" is not that critical (and a flashing application can't access hardware resources directly anyway).

But on "9" it's not the case, so I can move all flashing code to the application. The bad thing: with every new hardware the entire application has to be re-built. A (possible) solution: have an extra system extension dealing with it.
Still TBD.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Yeah. The “no negative feedback” nonsense is another red flag.

Absolutely. And how someone - as a buyer - can generate negative feedbacks?
Such demands clearly show the seller being a moron.