The Z3 FastLane is a Zorro III Fast SCSI-II DMA controller for the A3000 or A4000 with transfer rates of approximately 7MB/sec Asynchronous and 10MB/sec synchronous operation. It provides you with an internal 50pin SCSI connector, and an external 50pin Centronics style SCSI connector. It will support devices with SCSI, SCSI-2 and Fast SCSI-2 interfaces. It also has provision for up to 64MB memory or 256MB with an optional upgrade, in the form of standard 30-pin SIMM modules. RAM speeds supported are 60, 80 or 100ns. The 256MB RAM upgrade option consists of replacing the ROM with a version that supports 256MB and also some of the memory (GAL) addressing chips. After the memory upgrade it will no longer accept 1MB SIMMs and 4MB or 16MB SIMMS must be used. Unfortunately, even at the time the Fastlane was released, 16MB 30pin SIMMs were extremely expensive and nearly impossible to get hold of. This probably holds true today.
It is compatible with Buster revisions -09, -10 or -11, however as with all Zorro III devices, buster Rev 11 is highly recommended to due it's increased reliability and suffers less from bugs which plague earlier versions.
Note: In order to use the Fastlane in machines with an 060 processor, the card requires at least Version 8 of the firmware (8.5 is the latest). V2.4 cards should already have the appropriate firmware on the card, however V2.1 and V2.2 cards require the firmware to be upgraded. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is by burning a new EPROM and replacing the existing one on the card. You can still however use RAM on the card, regardless of the firmware version, even if you have an 060.
For fitting inside the A4000/040 with version 3.0 68040 processor boards, a 74FCT240 clock driver chip is also provided. This replaces the original 74FCT244 chip at position U103 on the motherboard, directly under the processor daughter-board.
For fitting inside the A3000, the Buster revision level MUST be -09 or higher.
Software is also provided, on a single floppy, in the form of Workbench and CLI utilities for configuration and control of SCSI devices, a CDROM filesystem and a memory cache utility.
_______________________________________________________________ | ------------------- ------------------- |___ | ------------------- ------------------- CONFIG | | Memory bank 4 Memory bank 4 ::::: | |CPS ------------------- ------------------- 43210 |::|# |: ------------------- ------------------- |::|# |:: Memory bank 3 Memory bank 3 |::|# External | ------------------- ------------------- |::|# SCSI | ------------------- ------------------- |::|# port | Memory bank 2 Memory bank 2 |::|# (Centronics) |RSIZ ------------------- ------------------- |::|# |:::: ------------------- ------------------- RAMSPD |::|# |:: Memory bank 1 Memory bank 1 :::::: ^^ |# |____________________________________________________________||_| |||||||||||||||||||||||||| || | |Internal SCSI | Terminator SIPs Jumpers CONFIG: SCSI Device Configuration Jumpers 0 - Debug mode open default 1 - Reserved open default 2 - Slow inquiry mode. open default closed Lengthens time to wait for device response. Used with older drives. 3 - Slow cable mode open default closed Only if transmission problems occur with cables that are longer than 5M. 4 - Syncron Auto-enable open Z3 examines RDB information on SCSI disks to closed determine whether to operate in Synchronous mode. This jumper is closed by default. RAMSPD: RAM Speed And Bank Size Jumpers This jumper block allows speed settings to be set (40, 60, 80 & 100ns). The 40ns setting is currently not supported. The two right-hand jumpers are used for memory configurations, which are detailed below. o o o o o o o o o o o o ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | | | | | 100ns | | | | | 80ns (default) | | | 60ns | 40ns It is possible to use 70 ns SIMMS by setting the jumper to 60 ns. It can be dropped back to 80 ns if problems arise due to the tolerance levels of the modules. The 60 ns setting will provide memory speeds which are approx 95% of that on the motherboard. Memory Configurations Standard 30-pin SIMMs are used, either 36-bit (PC) or 32-bit, so SIMMS generally advertised as either 1Mx9 or 1Mx8 can be used. 4MB and 1MB SIMMS can be mixed (see below) but not in the same bank. Memory must be fitted in groups of four SIMMS to completely fill each bank, and must be the same size in each bank, therefore the minimum configuration for 1 bank would be 4MB (4x1MB SIMMS) and the maximum 16MB (4x4MB SIMMS) An upgrade kit can be provided which will allow the use of 16MB SIMM modules. However, once fitted, you can no longer use 1MB SIMMs, but you can mix 4MB & 16MB. Total --------Memory installed on------- Config Memory Bank 1 Bank 2 Bank 3 Bank 4 Setting 4 4MB 1 8 4MB 4MB 1 12 4MB 4MB 4MB 1 16 4MB 4MB 4MB 4MB 1 16 16MB 2 20 16MB 4MB 2 24 16MB 4MB 4MB 2 28 16MB 4MB 4MB 4MB 2 32 16MB 16MB 3 36 16MB 16MB 4MB 3 40 16MB 16MB 4MB 4MB 3 48 16MB 16MB 16MB 4 64 16MB 16MB 16MB 16MB 5 CPS: Config Page Select jumpers RSIZ: RAM size jumpers These two jumper blocks determine the memory configuration. Each configuration setting has been allocated a number on the chart above and are detailed below. Setting 0: Memory off, or no memory fitted. o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed Setting 1: 4MB, 8MB, 12MB, 16MB exclusively with 1MB SIMMs o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed Setting 2: 16MB, 20MB, 24MB, 28MB with 1x4MB & 1MB combinations o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed Setting 3: 32MB, 36MB, 40MB with 2x4MB & 1MB combinations o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed Setting 4: 48MB with 3x4MB SIMMs o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed Setting 5: 64MB exclusively with 4MB SIMMs o o o o o o o | | o o o o o o o | | o o o o o o o o o o o o o o | | | | | | o o o o o o o o o o CPS RAM size RAM speed
Thanks to Ian Clark, Holger Hesselbarth and Warren Block
