A New Challenger - BlueSCSI - #MARCHintosh Review

There are many options for SCSI on your vintage Mac, but what about BlueSCSI?

Today, I'll review this newcomer to the SCSI scene, designed by Eric Helgeson. I'll build it from a kit, install it in my Performa 410, and see if it really lives up to the hype. Solder, printouts, diodes, surface mounts and SD cards - today!

MARCHintosh Event Logo concept and design by Javier Rivera
Twitter: @javierivera

[helfire]

Thanks for the review! And yes the diode footprints are too small, have that and a few things queued up for next rev. Macs are officially supported but have had reports of success in PCs. Also great time to run out of stock!

[bretwashere]

Still trying to figure out why you only have 3.3k subscribers. Your videos are amazing and you appear to be the only retro computer channel that’s covering Macs in March so throughly. As a subscriber of your channel for a couple years, please keep up the great work!

[RetroTheory]

Awesome video. Its perfect for getting these 68k macs up and running cheaply.

[kjakobsen]

Getting the instructions on listing paper is just beautiful.

[retroguy]

Thanks for that! I have just received mine, and I am following your instructions to get it up and running :-)

[desiv]

Great vid and great product. The SCSI drive in my Classic is still working, but can't hurt to have a backup. Signed up to be notified for when they are back in stock...

[geekwithsocialskills]

What a really cool piece of kit. I'll be ordering one of these for sure!

[tstahlfsu]

"Bob's your uncle" -- reminding me of Dave Jones from EEVBlog :-D Great video as always!

[TheBasementChannel]

I’m loving #marchintosh! Finding so many great new channels! Thanks for the great content.

[temporarilyoffline]

You did a great job on this video Joe! When I finally git an 8-bit PC SCSI card I want to try this out.

[tubr]

Nice review and demo! Does anyone know yet if it works with IBM PS/2?

[kjamison]

Handy tip: use some kapton tape to hold the SD jack to the board, if you have a slightly shaky hand. Less chance of making a mess of the soldering. Use a tip cleaner before soldering to help the solder stick to the tip of the iron. For tiny pads like this, get some really thin solder like 26 or 28 gauge. It helps to keep the solder on a single pad.

[JimLeonard]

Even I can appreciate the instruction sheet. Very nice work on the part of the creator.

[santospoland]

I spoke to Eric over on the Macintosh Garden discord and he did some testing with PPC and so far there are green lights but he was brief on details, nor did I ask for that matter but I am getting a couple of these. Great review, thank you.

[RavenWolfRetroTech]

Thanks Joe! Looks like a great product so I ordered a Kit today for the SE/30 I am restoring!

[trainingtheworld]

Great kit, I'll have to buy one and test it out on some of my machines.

[markcummings]

Great video Joe. This was the first review I’ve seen that showed that the OS could be setup using another drive once the initial file was created. I was worried it was like the Rominator in some respects. I wanted to get one of the external bluescsi devices for my 1mb Mac Plus, but wasn’t aware it doesn’t run on that. Hopefully later it will support more platforms.

[brentgreeff]

Using a Mac since 2007 - so I am a bit of a newcomer. - I want a BlueSCSI, - The optical drive emulation and the ease of setup - I am going to buy it now, and get the Mac later. - I played Myst & Riven on PC, but I want a retro Mac to get the proper experience. - Seems PowerPC is now supported, based on the Github page. - Riven was released in 1997 & in 98 on DVD. - I really hated swapping those discs. - What would be the ultimate Myst / Riven Mac? - The G3? ( BlueSCSI wiki says the beige is supported ) - there are like 10 different G3 models and many seem to have that DB-15 video port. - Are there G3s that are all-on-one? - gonna take me a while to figure this out :) - nice vid.

[BajaTym]

Great video, and the units seem to be sold out already! I’m impressed, really enjoyed watching. Just subbed. 👍

[eliotmansfield]

I would of left the scsi disk powered up for that authentic ‘about to die’ retro hard disk sound. I used to work in a lab in the late 80’s fixing hard disks and the sound of knackered bearings haunts me to this day.