Possible NEW USB solutions for the Amiga

[danbeaver]

There is a discussion on EAB:
eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=66255

That involves two hardware solutions to the lack of available USB devices for our Amigas.

The first is a small USB 1.1 controller for "bedded" devices referenced as:  item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=251042721473

The chip was used in the Thylacine USB board made in Australia which has been posted by the original designers as now "open" to the community with schematics, software source code and drivers.  It originally had its own stack but uses Poseidon well. It works in OS 4.1.  It is proposed as a project that could be built and sold in Zorro and clock port versions by "do gooders" who want to help out the Amiga community and maybe could use generated funds for other projects. The cost of the components for both seem inexpensive.

The Thylacine information is below:
http://members.iinet.com.au/~loofy/index.html

Count me in as a buyer if someone will build it

[Crumb]

AFAIK the SL811 chip used in Thylacine is quite unstable (according to experts like Chris Hodges, Jens Schoenfeld, Michael Boehmer and many others).

Rubbish is cheap but it's still rubbish.

[kolla]

A cool thing to do would be to write a USB/IP device driver for Poseidon, so any connected Amiga coputer could use USB devices shared from other computers.

[jj]

A cool thing to do would be to write a USB/IP device driver for Poseidon, so any connected Amiga coputer could use USB devices shared from other computers.

That looks interesting.  Will have to give it a nose.
 
Could be really usefully on my X64 machine anyway

[danbeaver]

AFAIK the SL811 chip used in Thylacine is quite unstable (according to experts like Chris Hodges, Jens Schoenfeld, Michael Boehmer and many others).

Rubbish is cheap but it's still rubbish.

That is a surprise to hear. My Thylacine card seems very stable and works with printers, mice, keyboards and thumb drives. In fact the Thylacine.device lists Chris Hodges as having put the final fixes to it in 2004.  I've read where a lot of people used it with Epson scanners and loved it ( my Epson scanner is still packed from a recent move).  Could it be a problem with USB 2.0 devices?  The USB hard drives and 100 MBit/s NIC's might be slowed, but do you think there is data corruption with them?  I've only had positive experiences, what details have you had that show it is "rubbish?"  Could you list the references to those comments to pin down the problems?

[ognix]

These are really GOOD news, especially opening sources and schematics: thanks!

[wawrzon]

a replica, or rather improved followup is already being attempted here:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?p=564175#post564175

[danbeaver]

Really?  Can you tell us what it says, it appears in German

It would be most desirable in a Zorro and a clock port version

[VingtTrois]

Count me in as a buyer if someone will built it.

Me too!

[yssing]

Looks like the clockport already have all the needed pins.

[TheBilgeRat]

Or jens could do another run of deneb and subway.


Just sayin'

[yssing]

true, but take a look at the price.
If it could run as-is it would be the cheapest USB solution for classic amigas.

[danbeaver]

I don't think Jens had made the boards for E3B -- Deneb although they work together on PCB boards for Subway

[platon42]

That is a surprise to hear. My Thylacine card seems very stable and works with printers, mice, keyboards and thumb drives. In fact the Thylacine.device lists Chris Hodges as having put the final fixes to it in 2004.  I've read where a lot of people used it with Epson scanners and loved it ( my Epson scanner is still packed from a recent move).  Could it be a problem with USB 2.0 devices?  The USB hard drives and 100 MBit/s NIC's might be slowed, but do you think there is data corruption with them?  I've only had positive experiences, what details have you had that show it is "rubbish?"  Could you list the references to those comments to pin down the problems?

http://www.cypress.com/?docID=26413

Carefully look at Errata number 1 (I've got no idea if the SMD hub chip crasbe is going to glue onto the board his this "problem", but if it has, then no mice or keyboards will be working) and number 6 (not that the other ones aren't bad, but the last one would make me refrain from using any MSD devices with it!).

[desiv]

Carefully look at Errata number 1 (I've got no idea if the SMD hub chip crasbe is going to glue onto the board his this "problem", but if it has, then no mice or keyboards will be working)

I would guess that wouldn't pass initial tests, so he wouldn't use that chipset.  Something to be aware of tho....

and number 6 (not that the other ones aren't bad, but the last one would make me refrain from using any MSD devices with it!).

It sounds like that's just something to be aware of for the USB stack (don't use "auto-increment").  I don't see how this affects me at all..
The performance of USB (especially over clockport) is probably going to be throttled by many other things before this would cause an issue..
And remember, this is supposed to be low cost, so slower isn't a big deal.  People who need more speed can buy the more expensive faster cards.  ;-)

So, I don't see any major issues holding this back..

Looking forward to a possible clockport version.

desiv