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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: keropi on July 16, 2006, 07:12:01 PM

Title: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: keropi on July 16, 2006, 07:12:01 PM
As topic says, this will work right? there isn't anything funny about it's "firmware" right?
I just wanna test it to see if it is functional before I go and buy a Poseidon license key...
don't have the mediator yet...
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Chain on July 16, 2006, 07:28:26 PM
I think it will work, its just common pci card with amiga drivers
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: CLS2086 on July 16, 2006, 08:19:02 PM
it's a NEC USB2 Pci card  :-)
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Piru on July 16, 2006, 08:19:04 PM
I don't think it works. It's a common NEC USB2.0 PCI card with modified PCI ID, so the driver won't detect it.

With linux you could add the PCI ID to the driver's know PCI IDs, but with Windows you can't.
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Boot_WB on July 16, 2006, 08:36:05 PM
According to Elbox you should be able to with no problems.

Note the "According to Elbox" bit there.  Haven't tried it myself.
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Piru on July 16, 2006, 08:44:10 PM
@Boot_WB

I see.

So the PCI ID is fixed only in their own drivers, to make sure you can't use any regular el-cheapo PCI NEC card with Mediator. Why am I not surprised...
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Jope on July 16, 2006, 08:48:47 PM
Time for a patch.. Oops, that's illegal. :-P
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Acill on July 16, 2006, 11:13:52 PM
It works, I gave mine to a friend after I sold my A3000 and he put it in a PC. Still using it as far as I know too.
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: mjg59 on July 17, 2006, 04:06:14 AM
Quote

Piru wrote:
I don't think it works. It's a common NEC USB2.0 PCI card with modified PCI ID, so the driver won't detect it.


USB chipsets have special PCI classes. Sensible drivers look for these rather than specific chipset IDs.
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Piru on July 17, 2006, 07:41:03 AM
@mjg59
Quote
USB chipsets have special PCI classes.

Yep.

Quote
Sensible drivers look for these rather than specific chipset IDs.

Possible, but yet the driver probably wants to limit itself to specific chipset. Or at least I doubt the same driver works for every and all USB cards there is...
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: platon42 on July 17, 2006, 07:50:29 AM
@Piru:

As far as I know, Elbox just modified the SubClass ID, so the main Class is not affected -- hence it will work in a PC without problems. It is also theoretically possible to turn any NEC USB card into a Spider by the same process that Elbox does -- writing the EEPROM data containing the SubClass ID by software (not that I ever did such a thing...). No need to patch anything, no need to do something illegal :)

Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: keropi on July 17, 2006, 08:03:32 AM
really? you can change SubClass ID via software only? did not knew that...
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Piru on July 17, 2006, 08:06:53 AM
@platon42

Ahh, that'd surely explain it.
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: Crumb on July 17, 2006, 11:22:16 AM
Uniflash may come handy(wintel machine required) (http://www.uniflash.org/)
Title: Re: Can I use the ELBOX SPIDER2 USB PCI card on a pc???
Post by: mjg59 on July 17, 2006, 01:20:28 PM
Quote

Possible, but yet the driver probably wants to limit itself to specific chipset. Or at least I doubt the same driver works for every and all USB cards there is...


There's only three types of PCI USB chipset (EHCI, UHCI and OHCI), and there's generally one driver for each. There's a flag in the PCI config header that specifies which sort of chipset it is, so the appropriate driver can be used. No need for board-specific drivers, so no need to worry about the actual vendor and product IDs.

Once you get outside PCI-land, this is less true. Various embedded platforms have their own USB host controller and need their own driver, but unless you're working on ARM you're not likely to ever see one.