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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: mantisspider on November 16, 2003, 10:20:25 PM
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Hi guys,
something that always puzzled me when I used to read about this mysterious thing called Zorro in the AmigaFormat magazines, what is it?
Well I finally learnt what it was but was increasingly confused as to why Amiga would chose something that would make it totaly incompatible with 3rd party hardware already out there. Something I always complained about when I used to try and use different mice and joysticks on my amiga and spectrum 128k :-)
Does anyone know the story behind why the Amiga used zorro rather than have used an ISA-bus for their machines? From what I read the A2000 had both Zorro and ISA bus onboard but the ISA bus was only used when a PC-bridgeboard was installed.
Amiga History Guide (http://amiga.emugaming.com/a2000.html):
Seven internal expansion slots (5x 100 pin Amiga Zorro II and 2 x 16-bit ISA slots). The ISA slots were disabled by default (only power and ground pins activated), but could be used when a Commodore bridgeboard was installed (a PC-on-a-card). Inactive slots can be used for non intelligent cards like TBCs or fan cards.
Couldnt the ISA-bus on the A2000 be used to work with ISA cards to run on the Amiga? From what I remember the ISA was not as reliable as the PCI-bus, but cards were cheap and everywhere.
Was it just that Amiga wanted to be seen as so different from the x86 PC machines that it would not switch to using a PCI-bus rather than develop the Zorro III?
This has always intreged me as it could have been one of those things that would have allowed the expansion and development of the Amiga to have kept up with the rapid growth of the x86 PC. There may even have been AGP port on the Amiga 4000.
Now wheres my time machine?
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I really don't know the reason of using the zorro slot but I can guess one:
PC's were way back these days, and perchaps a non-compatible slot could give them the "exclusive" of various cards (like TBC - Time Base Corrector - cards which most video professionals needed)
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Seems simple to me: PCI didn't exist in 1985 when the Zorro concept was designed, and ISA was crap at that time. Bridgeboards did make ISA slots active on the Amiga side, but very few drivers were written.
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I wouldnt say ISA was crap, my P133 still even had ISA cards when I got it, and I never actually had a problem with my Sound Blaster and my graphics card. They were aparently not as reliable as modern PCI cards, but its a bit harsh comparing an older piece of hardware to todays standards.
Anyone know the transfer rates for comparing the Zorro II to ISA?
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@animagic,
efaristo re.
makes sense as it was picked up by the video industry. But still cant see anysense as to why they didnt allow both Zorro and the ISA-bus to be used as standard on the machine. hope these pointless questions dont become one of those that can never get anwsered. i need closure! :-S
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Hmmm....
Greek (or a sort of - is Efxaristo not efaristo na NOT
RE as it comes from MORE which comes from MOROS which means CRAZY :-)
I' m impressed!
:-D
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mantisspider wrote:
@animagic,
efaristo re.
makes sense as it was picked up by the video industry. But still cant see anysense as to why they didnt allow both Zorro and the ISA-bus to be used as standard on the machine. hope these pointless questions dont become one of those that can never get anwsered. i need closure! :-S
Zorro was designed to allow access to the Amiga and it's special hardware... ISA has no ability to do that it lacks the custom chip signals etc...
The Zorro specification grew out of an Expansion slot on the A1000, that was designed to provide a far more flexable interface than ISA was designed to provide. (Zorro and Zorro II are basicly the same thing)
As for Zorro III, there was no PCI or 32bit ISA at the time so the Amiga team had to design their own 32 Bit bus. When PCI was developed the Amiga Design team planned to include it in the next Amiga, but Commodore folded before that ever happened.
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Thanks to Bloodline for clarification.
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Yes, bloodline is very helpfull most of the time :-)
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lol,
hmmm i always thought 're' came from 'koumpare' i think thats a nicer version
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Animagic wrote:
Yes, bloodline is very helpfull most of the time :-)
That's my pleasure :-) I could bang on about Amiga Hardware until some one leads me back to my padded cell in the mental asylum :-D
Oh and they didn't include ISA as standard, simply becasue they didn't need to! The Zorro bus was fast, more flexable, and the ISA would have required extra hardware (an ISA controler chip etc..). Oh, and the ISA was not Autoconfig, where as Zorro is. AmigaOS (and amiga users) needs Autoconfig devices.
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Bloodline, ur a star
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zorro was better than isa.. and pci did not exist yet in the beginning days of zorro
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@mantisspider
You forget that when the Amiga was created, ISA was limited to a max speed of 8Mhz and the majority of implimentations were 8-bit only. Then, combine in the fact that ISA is little endian while the Amiga was big endian, the fact that ISA is really little more than a modularized 8088 local bus and the Amiga lacks an 8088 CPU, and that at that time the #1 expantion bus was the S-100 from the Apple II, there was no need nor desire for ISA expantion. The primary reason ISA existed in the A2000 at all was for the 8088 Bridgeboard which gave an A2000 the ability to run IBM compatible software. The A1000's sidecar did much the same thing.
Technologically, the Zorro bus was more flexible, faster, and was more widely used (since Zorro was a modified 68k local bus, and the majority of peripheral components were 68k-based, there were a wider selection of potential expantion components than one would have found with ISA) so there was no incentive to cripple the design with a hobbled 8-bit bus.
As for PCI, didn't exist then. However, when PCI was unveiled in the summer of '93, Commodore had plans to switch to it for the next-generation "Acutiator" architecture.
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the #1 expantion bus was the S-100 from the Apple II
The S-100 bus was introduced with the Altair and then cloned and used in many other early 8080- and Z80-based machines. I don't recall what bus the Apple II used, but, since the S-100 bus is basically just an externalized copy of the 8080 bus and the Apple II was a 6502-based machine, I serious doublt that it used the S-100 bus . . .
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@evilrich
Since I'm not an Apple II fan, can't confirm or deny it. Someone once told me that it was the name of the Apple II's expantion bus, and I had no reason to doubt them. Now I do.
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As for Zorro III, there was no PCI or 32bit ISA at the time so the Amiga team had to design their own 32 Bit bus. When PCI was developed the Amiga Design team planned to include it in the next Amiga, but Commodore folded before that ever happened.
Precursor to VL-Bus and PCI slots (~1993), the 32bit slots in X86 PCs are either the EISA or MCA. 32bit ISA are known as EISA.
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bloodline wrote:
Animagic wrote:
Yes, bloodline is very helpfull most of the time :-)
Oh, and the ISA was not Autoconfig, where as Zorro is. AmigaOS (and amiga users) needs Autoconfig devices.
Note that Plug’n’Play 16bit ISA (e.g. Yamaha Sonta S16 Sound card**) existed later.
**Plug’n’Play X86 OS is required.
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Back in the day
ISA : utter bobbins
PCI : non existant
Hence Zorro. Designed for amiga, rather than atapted from some second rate 8088 crud...
Next question? :lol:
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Hence Zorro. Designed for amiga, rather than atapted from some second rate 8088 crud...
In regards to 8088, the ISA bus would be XT ISA (8bits) as oppose to AT ISA(16bit). 8088 has an 8bit bus while the 80286 have a 16bit bus.
There are three generations of ISA
XT ISA(1981) = 8bit (with 8088)
AT ISA(1984) = 16bit (with 80286)
E-ISA(1988) = 32bit**(with 80386)
**completing against non-backward compatible MCA.
"EISA systems also use an automated setup to deal with adapter-board interrupts and addressing issues. These issues often cause problems when several different adapter boards are installed in an ISA system. EISA setup software recognizes potential conflicts and automatically configures the system to avoid them. EISA does, however, enable you to do your own troubleshooting, as well as to configure the boards through jumpers and switches. This concept was not new to EISA; IBM's MCA bus also supported configuration via software. Another new feature of EISA systems is IRQ sharing, meaning that multiple bus cards can share a single interrupt. This feature has also been implemented in PCI bus cards. " - Upgrading & Repairing PCs Eighth Edition
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@Hammer
Quite true, but remember the time period we are discussing here is the '84-'86 era, 16-bit ISA was still underutilized and several clone manufacturers did not supply them with their machines. (My grandfathers clone, for example, ran with straight 8-bit ISA, and it was from '86)
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ISA is crap.
Back in the mid 80's it was crap.
Zorro was great(and Amiga specific)!
S-100 bus was used on a variety of Z-80 and 8080 based machines. Different brands even.
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@downix
Quite true, but remember the time period we are discussing here is the '84-'86 era, 16-bit ISA was still underutilized and several clone manufacturers did not supply them with their machines. (My grandfathers clone, for example, ran with straight 8-bit ISA, and it was from '86)
ISA type usually corresponds to their processor i.e. it’s unlikely that the 8088/8086 based PC will have a 16bit ISA.
Note that, the PC AT standard states for 16bit ISA. 8bit ISA with the 80286 processor is just a substandard PC clone. EISA standard was developed primarily by Compaq.
PS; My parent’s old IBM PS/2 386 box has MCA instead.
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@Hammer
His machine was an 8086.
And note, I have a 286 PS/2 w/ 8-bit ISA.
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And note, I have a 286 PS/2 w/ 8-bit ISA.
What model was that? An IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 has 16bit ISA slots. I don’t think 80286 processor can support 32bit EISA/MCA bus.
Back at that time, IBM has a knack of reserving high end stuff for high price market.
His machine was an 8086.
That figures...
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What model was that? An IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 has 16bit ISA slots.
Alot of those machines had 8-bit ISA slots in 286 based machines.
From memory I think there were some machines that had a combination of 8-bit ISA & 8/16-bit ISA slots.
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From memory I think there were some machines that had a combination of 8-bit ISA & 8/16-bit ISA slots.
The reason for that and I quote....
"The extended 16-bit slots physically interfere with some 8-bit adapter cards that have a skirt--an extended area of the card that drops down toward the motherboard just after the connector. To handle these cards, IBM left two expansion ports in the PC/AT without the 16-bit extensions. These slots, which are identical to the expansion slots in earlier systems, can handle any skirted PC or XT expansion card. This is not a problem today, as no skirted 8-bit cards have been manufactured for years." -Upgrading & Repairing PCs Eighth Edition
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Commodore went with zorro slots not because of "ISA being slow", they went with Zorro slots because of the pin count on the 1000's Zorro-II expansion port. If you need 100 pins and an ISA slot has 98 (36+62), what do you do? You use a different sized slot to keep costs down on expansion products.
(Everything below this is just blather, the above statement is the only real important one :)
Amiga 2000's are basically just modified Amiga 1000 (as is the A500) motherboards with the expansion port turned into multiple zorro ports. The original A2000 was designed in Germany. It was based on an integration of the A1000 motherboard design and the example Zorro II backplane from "Schematics and Expansion Specifications", the A1000 hardware manual. - Dave Haynie. All Amiga's are basically the same computer, sure the later AGA chipset machines were technologically different, but the 500/1000/1500/2000/2500 are all the same beast with motherboard modifications (and even 3000 which is basically a modified 2500 with an integrated flickerfixer). You could even buy a zorro expansion kit for your A500 which gave you multiple Zorro expansion slots under your 500's case. This allowed you to use most of the same Zorro cards on your 500 as you could use in your 2000 (excluding the accelerator slot and the video slot). These expansions worked with no fancy software, no drivers, no new chips, etc. - just plain old circuit boards with solder trails going from expansion pins outs to zorro slot pins.
That was/is part of the beauty of Amigas, everything worked on different models because they were basically the same machine (you didn't have to write software for ten different video card chipsets, or five different sound cards). And what they did at the time was leaps and bounds ahead of any other manufacturer. :-)