Must have Zorro cards or other hw?

[J-Golden]

Hmmm going ONLY off of the cards I've owned, I have to say the Piccasso IV was the major improvment that I'd keep over all others.
 
AS for this thread, It's title is asking about Zorro cards, not the Best world sollution. IF we were going for that, we wouldn't really be talking classic HW in the first place.

[Jope]

The only really necessary Zorro II card for me these days is an ethernet board. Ariadne II is my weapon of choice.

[Xanxi]

The best card there is in the whole amiga history is the Deneb: gives your fast USB, ethernet through an ethernet-USB dongle, and AHI audio through an USB audio dongle if your are Zorro III, not to mention the flashROM.
All that on an half-sized zorro board that won't even waste an inline ISA slot.

[J-Golden]

The Deneb is truly awesome! I always wondered if they could make a driver for the VGA and DVI USB adapters that are out.  If that ever happened, it would truly be the single best thing to EVER have on a Classic Amiga...

[Brian]

Is there any Zorro-II/-III cards that you have that you wouldn't live without?, ie very useful, must have etc? that isn't bread-n-butter solutions like SCSI-controller with disk,  IDE-controller with disk, RAM-expansion etc.

Inspiration.. http://www.amiga-hardware.com/

RTG videocard with scandoubler/ff or at least just a scandoubler/ff is about the most important thing so you get a good picture. Next is some kind of way to transfer loads of files, some like a NIC and I get why but I still tend to like USB better (A1200/600 have both NIC and CF through PCMCIA but that's obviously not Z2/3).

That's my 2c.

[Heiroglyph]

Why have you pushed this thread to be about FPGA Arcade? Is this somehow linked to another thread? [Edit: Ah I've found it. Would have been nice if freqmax had mentioned this in his first post]

I still don't see how this is related to FPGA Arcade.

If that's the case, I'd like working USB (as opposed to dead ports).  I haven't owned PS2 or Amiga input devices in years.

Simple RTG too, 3D isn't a big issue for me.  None of my monitors are less than 1440x900 native and scaling on LCD's looks rough.  Fast 2D is plenty for my needs.

[billt]

1) Why have you pushed this thread to be about FPGA Arcade? Is this somehow linked to another thread?

Maybe my mistake. I've seen the FPGA Arcade thread take on a "we want Zorro slots" subtopic, and there's another thread about Zorro somewhere. At least the main FPGA Arcade thread has been asking "why do you need a Zorro sot adaptor", this topic here fits in with that rather well.

I guess I linked them together myself. Sorry.

As for PCI-Express, there's a handful of PCI32 adaptors, and then you can get this adapter supported with those:
http://www.startech.com/product/PCI1PEX1-PCI-to-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card

Without such adaptors, my favorite Zorro card was Rapidfire or Spitfire SCSI from DKB. Their driver handled auto disk swapping in ZIP drives way better than anything else I tried, even the Squirrel ZIP tools  with my 4091 paled in comparison. I kept a DKB SCSI card in my A4000T for my removable drives, and left everything else on the built-in 4091. My older classics also need ethernet and graphics cards. Anything else either goes unused or I never got one, including my mostly unused Delfina Plus.

But really, we should all value our PCI adaptors above all else. I've got both a Prometheus and a Mediator in different machines.

[Crumb]

Is there any Zorro-II/-III cards that you have that you wouldn't live without?, ie very useful, must have etc?

Deneb: gives you very fast USB2.0, DMA, flashram and allows you to connect sound card, network cards, HDs (and the HDs work way faster than using any other ZorroII card)

RTG:*PicassoIV or CV64+Indivision. PCI bridges are nice but don't switch the display automatically (well, there are some DIY solutions although these are IMHO*slightly expensive)

Network card: use a Deneb

Sound card: never cared about it much... use a Deneb. Or a Delphina, but a Deneb+usb soundcard is ok for me (although doesn't offer cpu-free mp3 decoding like delphina).

HD*controller:*use Deneb with a USB-HD adapter (SATA*or IDE, doesn't matter).

PS:*I have Prometheus, Mediator4000 and Mediator4000T and I have used G-Rex 4000. I prefer Deneb+RTG Zorro card (well, I admit GRex is sweet although if your CSPPC breaks you'll want to slit your wrists).

[zylesea]

Is there any Zorro-II/-III cards that you have that you wouldn't live without?, ie very useful, must have etc? that isn't bread-n-butter solutions like SCSI-controller with disk,  IDE-controller with disk, RAM-expansion etc.

Inspiration.. http://www.amiga-hardware.com/

The *only thing* I sometimes miss from my long ago sold 68k machine is the Delfina soundcard - that one was pretty nice. Hence I consider that the best card in my Amiga, the other cards were rather supporting ingredients.

[alexh]

I always wondered if they could make a driver for the VGA and DVI USB adapters that are out.

Yes but it would almost certainly suck.

AFAIK these USB cards were designed

a) To have very fast CPU's behind them for software compression
b) To be able to use the full bandwidth of USB2.0 (20+Mbyte/sec)

Pretty sure that given a low power CPU and then capped at 4Mbyte/s they would suck big time.

[alexh]

As for PCI-Express, there's a handful of PCI32 adaptors, and then you can get this adapter supported with those:
http://www.startech.com/product/PCI1PEX1-PCI-to-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card

I work for the company that designed the chip on that card. Doesn't work very well with newer gfx cards (at least on a PC) :-(

[freqmax]

To little bandwidth on the PCI side?

[billt]

I work for the company that designed the chip on that card. Doesn't work very well with newer gfx cards (at least on a PC) :-(

I was expecting it to be a PLX chip, I believe their adaptrs in the opposite direction used PLX. I don't know much about the Pericom stuff, but I do have two of your adaptors.

[AndyLandy]

I love my Z3 Fastlane. 64MB of extra FastRAM and a Fast SCSI-II interface. Damn fine piece of hardware. :-)

[alexh]

I was expecting it to be a PLX chip, I believe their adaptrs in the opposite direction used PLX.

Yup, probably the same chip used in both, the PEX8112. Works in both forward (PCI host -> PCIe card) and reverse (PCIe host -> PCI card). I play with them at home from time to time with classic systems.

To little bandwidth on the PCI side?

Possibly. I fear that for some reason the PCIe drivers for gfx cards are not 100% "transparent" as they should be. They don't seem to like being connected to the south bridge PCI. I assume that is because they are so used to being connected to a Northbridge (or CPU) PCIe and perhaps utilise speedups which don't work?? Who knows if this would be an issue for an Amiga.

[SACC-guy]

for me, the toaster and flyer cards were the best!

Michael