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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: utri007 on March 30, 2007, 08:09:59 PM
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I just installed to my friend pc usb to com adapter, I thought that would iy be possible to use it with cender changer as usb port in amiga like com to usb adapter ?
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No
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thanks Piru I asked that because I relized that you just answered similar question :)
Could you say more detailed ?
Quite many components works allso opposite ?
Do you any opinions my another question
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28297
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Quite many components works allso opposite?
The components that work are passive (typically just straight wiring). USB is not.
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I just edit my question please check it again
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I've looked into what it would take to make a USB adapter for the C64, so I have a little background on the subject. This might get a little technical, and it looks like English isn't your first language, so if you need me to say something a different way, let me know.
Though it only uses four wires (+5VDC, GND, and two data lines), USB is much more complicated than RS-232. It's a whole networking system, only for devices instead of individual computers. Part of the USB standard is the distinction between "hosts" and "devices". There are also a set of "HID" standards, so all USB keyboards speak the same way, like all USB mice, and USB disk drives.
If you were to plug a USB to RS-232 adapter into the Amiga, the USB side would still want to be a client to some host, and it would only know how to speak the protocol for what kind of device it is.
Interestingly, USB On-The-Go (a new USB standard) is more of a peer-to-peer architecture, but there aren't a lot of devices out there using it.
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short answer: no
Long answer: kinda, there are UART to USB converters that let you mount the device (IE the Amiga) as a USB peripheral so it could be accessed by USB from another computer, that said you could not plug a harddrive or other USB devices into your Amiga. Basically you would get the USB B type connector on your Amiga but it would be of no use.
The second and much more complicated way would be to make a small 8bit computer with USB and serial, add a bit of software on both the Amiga and the 8bit chip, basically a serial network between the two, that would give yo uaccess to harddrives, CD-Roms etc. It would be as slow as a serial network but it would work.
I have seen Ethernet demo boards that are only 1.5" square that do this.. not a great solution though.
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Oli_hd wrote:
short answer: no
Long answer: kinda, there are UART to USB converters that let you mount the device (IE the Amiga) as a USB peripheral so it could be accessed by USB from another computer, that said you could not plug a harddrive or other USB devices into your Amiga. Basically you would get the USB B type connector on your Amiga but it would be of no use.
The second and much more complicated way would be to make a small 8bit computer with USB and serial, add a bit of software on both the Amiga and the 8bit chip, basically a serial network between the two, that would give yo uaccess to harddrives, CD-Roms etc. It would be as slow as a serial network but it would work.
I have seen Ethernet demo boards that are only 1.5" square that do this.. not a great solution though.
And why not try to use the user port directly?
I haven't had much time to solder things and so, but I am still thinking about to make a project wich makes usb connection possible on the C=64 using the user port and an AVR or PIC or something like that.
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And why not try to use the user port directly? I haven't had much time to solder things and so, but I am still thinking about to make a project wich makes usb connection possible on the C=64 using the user port and an AVR or PIC or something like that.
Im assuming your talking about the user port on a C64, if so sorry I wasnt :)
I was talking about just on the Amiga, now you could talk about using the printer port or the side expansion slot, in both of those situations I would think of looking at a small 8bit USB host chip like the SL811HS.
As for using a PIC are you talking about the ones with USB on-board because they are peripheral controllers, they are not host controllers so again, woudnt let you plug a harddrive in.
As for the AVR's, sorry I dont know jack about them. :)
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SL811HS is evil. It was evil in 2001 already.
Maybe some people now understand why it's not quite straight forward in doing research and developing a USB host controller expansion for the Amiga (and not just taking a bog standard PCI card). There is not much of a choice regarding the controller chipset.
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IMHO the dumb part in USB is the strict master/slave role on device level. It'd be much more flexible if it used a more peer/peer approach like e.g. Firewire or SCSI - maybe in another universe... ;-)
But then again, the strict slave logic is what makes USB devices so cheap and successful.
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Maybe some people now understand why it's not quite straight forward in doing research and developing a USB host controller expansion for the Amiga (and not just taking a bog standard PCI card). There is not much of a choice regarding the controller chipset.
Ive just bought a great Philips USB 2.0 controller from Digikey (just to pad the order up to the £100 where I get free postage) which has a standard (well, as standard as it gets) CPU bus interface (16 or 32bit selectable) that drives three USB ports at 480mbps, does DMA, the lot.
There was also on-the-go controllers and single port version yeah the software may be a bit of fun (havent looked at it, this was gonna be for a none Amiga project) but the chips are out.
That said yeah the SL811 is evil, buts its about the only PLCC case USB host controller your gonna find and it is workin on the Amiga already so it was the obvious choice.
Anyhow it was a bit of a silly topic anyway a serial to USB controller would be Soooo slow you couldnt use it for much other than downloading photo's from a camera and there are nice IDE adaptors for that.
edit: The USB chip I got was a Philips ISP1760BE (Digikey Linky (http://catalog.digikey.com/scripts/partsearch.dll?Detail?name=568-1887-1-ND))
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Take a look at this one: www.vinculum.com . It integrates the USB ports with a CPU that runs a USB host stack. The interface to the computer is via a serial port, or parallel FIFO.
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Yup, thats the sort of thing utri007 was lookin for.
Now just to make it work on the miggy :lol:
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> That said yeah the SL811 is evil, buts its about the only PLCC case USB host controller your gonna find and it is workin on the Amiga already so it was the obvious choice.
Doing a bit more research pays off sometime.
The very first prototype of the Subway used the SL811HS. It was found unsuitable due to massive hardware bugs and silly design.
At that time (2001), there was the TransDimension UHC124 chipset, much more powerful than the SL811HS, a lot less buggy). Its bus interface was so flexible that it could operate also in the 8 bit databus, 4 bit address space of the clockport, but also in 16 bit mode with 16kb address space. Hence, it was used for the Subway USB Clockport card and the Highway USB Zorro II card, both manufactured by E3B.
Later for the Algor, the next generation OTG243 chipset also from TransDimension was used. It has a much better transfer logic, more memory, 32bit access, which allows high transfer speed at less interrupt frequency.
None of these chips are BGA and easy to solder.
About the Philips ISP1760: I have a working driver for that one for the Amiga already :) Watch this space ;-P
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Take a look at this one: www.vinculum.com
Oh, it was a happy day when I first heard about that one. I brought up the idea of doing a VDIP-based IEC serial USB drive for the 64 at one of our user group meetings, but couldn't find anyone interested in working on it.
That chip is *perfect* for doing USB on the 64.
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Oli_hd wrote:
Yup, thats the sort of thing utri007 was lookin for.
Now just to make it work on the miggy :lol:
Well, as the Jargon File sez. "It's just a small matter of programming" ;-)
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csixty4 wrote:
That chip is *perfect* for doing USB on the 64.
I don't know much about the 64, being an old Atari 8-bit guy.;-) But I'd guess you could run the Vinculum chip off the serial I/O bus or the hack bus on either machine. I kinda like Vinculum's V-Music module, with the integrated MP3 chip.... It would be kinda cool to play MP3s on a C64 or Atari 800XL. ;-) Only costs 45 bucks...
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Ive just bought a great Philips USB 2.0 controller from Digikey...
Fine. As Chris wrote, we have a working prototype including Poseidon drivers, both PIO and DMA.
I can just give you the hint that you will need more than "it does not get hot anymore when being powered, so it works now" to get it working stable. Especially the DMA engine... well, you will find out soon enough for yourself :-)
Good luck.
Michael