Macintosh SCSI Termination: A Brief Explanation



Is the Macintosh SCSI connector terminated on the logic board? In other words,
are both ends of the chain terminated or only the last peripheral?

The Macintosh systems that have SCSI ports are not terminated on the logic
board. One system, the Macintosh IIfx, when shipped without an internal hard
drive, comes with a terminator plugged into the internal SCSI connector. If an
internal hard drive is installed in a Macintosh system, it should be
terminated. The internal hard drive is the first device in a SCSI chain. The
last device in the SCSI chain should also be terminated.

Typically, a Macintosh system with only one SCSI device needs only one
terminator. The exception to this is the Macintosh IIfx when it has a single
SCSI device attached on the external SCSI connector. In this case, there
should be the internal terminator that came with Macintosh IIfx and a
terminator on the external SCSI device.


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012