Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Plaz on September 28, 2003, 11:37:14 PM
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I know I can run old stuff like CrossDos or the like, but I've never bothered to learn if these slots could be accessed by AmigaOS and used for some thing usefull. It would be nice (and cheap) if I could drop in an old 10mb ISA ethernet card and put the old amigas on a lan. So did any one ever get these things to work from native amiga mode?
Plaz
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The ISA "bus" on a 4000 isn't connected to anything. The only way the CPU can access it is by plugging in a "Bridgeboard" that connects the Zorro bus to the ISA bus with suitable logic and controls.
tony
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Exactly, my Amiga 2000 came with an ISA ethernet card amusingly, but no bridge board :(. Bridge boards, by the way, usually come with an X86 processor too.... IIRC almost all did
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So if you had a bridge board amiga os could talk to an ethernet card? Or is that just part of Dos emulation packages?
Plaz
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To jeffimix:
Commodore made 3 kinds of Bridge Boards for the Amiga 2000 computer. The first one used an Intel 8088 processor. The second one used an Intel 286 processor and the third used an Intel 386 processor. The Bridgeboard with the Intel 386 processor is the most desirable. :roll:
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There was a board called the "golden gate" board that connected the Amiga side to the ISA slots and let you use ISA cards- like some LAN cards, IDE controllers, modems, and printer cards. I don't know if it's still available, but their web site is still up at:
http://penguincentral.com/GG2/
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you can use etherbridge.lha from aminet. I use it with an NE2000 card...
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Commodore made 3 kinds of Bridge Boards for the Amiga 2000 computer. The first one used an Intel 8088 processor. The second one used an Intel 286 processor and the third used an Intel 386 processor. The Bridgeboard with the Intel 386 processor is the most desirable.
Anyone with Military Grade chips on it???? Some ppl can´t live without :-D :-D :-D
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Is there any SVGA drivers availible??? (thinking about the stack of SVGA cards I have lying around...)
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Look at the Cybergraphics Page.
But there are no drivers for bridge cards,
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I haven't seen any SVGA drivers..
I don't think it'd be a good idea - it's very slow to access those cards through bridge board..
I get something like 400kB/s to my NE2000 card with a GG2+ and an 060/50 equipped A2000.
Bleh.
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I get around 400Kbytes/s with my cbm 286 bridgeboard too.
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@whabang
Well there was the Omnibus (http://amiga.resource.cx/expde/search.pl?product=omnibus), a special (passive) bridgeboard
plus a 1MB-ET4000-ISA-card.
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Only power is connected to the ISA slots, so without a BridgeBoard you can only use Time Base Correctors and similar video equipments.
Two kinds of BridgeBoards exist:
- PC emulators (Commodore 8088/ 2286/ 2386 and Vortex GoldenGate 386/486 series) which allow the use of ISA cards on the PC side.
- BridgeBoards without PC emulation (GoldenGate 2+ and CrossLink) which allow the use of some ISA cards on the Amiga side. These have driver for serial/parallel/Ethernet cards, but do not support ISA cards with DMA.
Here's the list and description of all BridgeBoards and all ISA cards which do not need a BridgeBoard but have Amiga software for it (eg. TBCs): list (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?intf=isa).
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Another similar (ISA ET4000 on Zorro II) card is the Domino (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=domino).
Kronos wrote:
Well there was the Omnibus (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=omnibus), a special (passive) bridgeboard
plus a 1MB-ET4000-ISA-card.
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@Lex
Yeah,sure,but that didn't use the ISA-slots allready present in the A2/3/4000
(like the Omnibus), but has the card (topside-down) mounted onto the Zorro-card.
In theory one could analyze the Omnibus,and use it for more than 1 card.