Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:08:42 -0400 Subject: Re: [PCI] Promise Ultra66 PCI ATA Controller Info ???? From: "Michael Shaw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From the info and pictures I've been able to find on the internet theyare all the same... and NONE of the references to Promise Ultra66 cards even mention that they are Mac-compatible.
Is there a specific Promise model number for Macintosh-compliant cards ???
The Promise cards are not Mac compatible without modification to the hardware. Depending on the variety of Promise 66 used this involves moving from two to five resistors, possibly removing a half-size metal can oscillator, and always involves removing the Flash ROM chip and reprogramming it and replacing it. As far as I know, no-one has hacked the VST UltraTek flasher to work with a Flash ROM which still contains the Promise code.
So you wouldn't see any difference in the pictures unless you were looking at the level of the positions of individual resistors.
The Flash ROM is a chip (32 pin DIP on the left) which contains the firmware drivers that the computer loads at power-on so that the computer knows how to communicate with the card. This is what makes devices connected to the card bootable--drivers load at power-on from this memory chip, rather than waiting to load from the OS. This is why no software drivers are needed; the drivers are stored on the card in the flash ROM chip.
The contents of the flash ROM are different depending on whether the card is destined for a PC or a Mac--you wouldn't expect a Mac to use the same driver as a PC after all.
Even if someone had hacked the firmware flasher to work on the PC version of the card, there's a resistor under the flash ROM which must be moved, so the modification pretty much always involves non-destructively removing the 32 pin flash ROM, reprogramming it and replacing it.
Jeff Walther
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