Zip 100 external scsi <-> emax II, cable/boot question

[minphase]

Hi forum,

 Really dumb cable question.  FedEx man has been very busy last week, delivering stuff.  I got a usb-zip100 drive from one, a load of zip100 discs from another person, and finally, a scsi-zip100 drive.  First step was to try and connect external scsi zip100 drive to the emaxII and format a disc, as the first step to world domination, I mean, to getting banks from the web loaded onto a zip via emxp.  Anyhow, I can't help but notice that the scsi cable (and I hope it's a scsi cable) that came with the zip100 is a DB25Female-to-DB25Male. 

The zip drive has two DB25F connectors.
The emax has a DB25F connector.

At risk of betraying a touching naivete about SCSI sexuality, intimacy and gender-identification issues...

Everyone seems to be female, and the male-female cable is not welcome at this type of party. 

So, is it safe or desirable to find a DB25M-DB25M cable to connect the emax2 to an external iomega zip100 drive?  Will a little null-modem gender changer do the trick?

Question two -- can I boot the emaxII from a scsi zip drive that is device 5 or 6?  Or am I doomed to using a floppy to boot, until I sort out an internal CF solution? There's probably an obvious menu item for setting the boot device, isn't there.

Question three - I saw a horror forum post elsewhere (gearslutz?) about hot swapping scsi zips and blowing things up.  The proper sequence wasn't clear from the post however, to me anyhow!  Anyone got a procedure?   

Very best to all.  In other news, an EII came in the mail, a bit worse for wear (broken C1 and C6) but amazingly enough, in working order.  A few bouncy buttons, no backlight, but it appears to sample correctly!  I'll post pictures and the inevitable questions in the EII threads. 

Also, went a bit crazy at the AW auction.  Scored one of the zips, if spending 600 GBP and not getting any heroin counts as a 'score'.  Also some posters and the BPI silver disc for "Everything Counts", my favourite song of ALL TIME.

[minphase]

OK, sorry, the mere action of posting on this forum seems to help me find the answer myself, five minutes later.  For the benefit of similar newbs in future, this from scsicardreaders.com:

"There are three primary SCSI connector types used with the SCSI devices we sell on this website and the samplers. They are all compatible - it is just a matter of buying a cable with the correct SCSI connectors on each end and the connectors do not have to be the same on each end. The gender of a cable won't be an issue; SCSI devices, such as your sampler and any of the SCSI storage units we sell will all have female SCSI connectors, so all the SCSI cables you will need (and we sell) will have male connectors."
 
http://www.scsicardreaders.com/cables.asp

[Chevytraveller]

Be sure that you have a SCSI Zip drive!(this is a common mistake)
sounds as though you may have a parallel cable. A SCSI Zip drive will have 2 switches between the 2 25 pin D-Sub connectors.
One is for SCSI ID (5 or 6) and the other is for Termination. If you do not have these switches, then you have a Parallel Port drive and it won't work


Hope this helps

 

[minphase]

Yes, that's a very good point to make for the list.  I saw at least one drive on ebay advertised as a SCSI-drive, when the photo showed a little printer icon and absence of termination switches.  Ebayers can't be depended upon to know the difference in the drives.

This one's a SCSI drive for certain, the ebayer just sent a DB25M-DB25F parallel port cable instead of the DB25M-DB25M SCSI-1 cable.  I spent a lot of time on the web looking for such a scsi cable -- they used to be as common as salt!  Ebay had a few, $5 + $5 shipping, not bad.  I'm my continued quest for solid state nirvana, I've ordered a scsi-pcmcia-CF box that will actually make the scsi zip redundant.  Wait a minute, why did I order that cable now   

Thanks< minphase