Deneb VS Spider II USB Card

[Darrin]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Elbox products and I have loads of them.

However, the statements above about getting Poseidon to work with the Spider are correct (good luck finding it), which is why I installed a Deneb in my A4000 (installing the software takes a couple of minutes as an older version is on the ROM and you just set a jumper, boot and then install it from Workbench - no disks necessary, and then let it update itself when you get online).  You also get the FlashROM funtion which also comes in handy.

My Mediator takes care of my Radion 256MB card (providing extra system RAM) and a Sound Blaster 128.  I intend to get arround to fitting my PCI Catweasle at some point as the OpenPCI stack is supposed to have drivers for it and will run alongside Poseidon.

Now that Poseidon has been released for free, I'm surprised that Elbox haven't created their own version for download.

[Darrin]

Undenied. But that's not what I quoted.

I hoped that once your stack was being sold with the actual hardware that there was no way you couldn't get paid.  That's a shame as Poseidon is worth every penny.  I couldn't imagine using an Amiga without it now.

[Darrin]

Have you emailed Elbox?  They were very helpful to me when I was trying to get my Radeon 256MB card running on my A4000.

Check their (Elbox's) support page for the latest Spider drivers and install them, and then make sure you have the latest Poseidon package from Chris' website.

I'd be interested to see if this works too.  Currently I'm using a Deneb in my A4000 along with a Mediator, but if I could use a Spider card in there instead then I'd put the Deneb in my A2000.

[Darrin]

Yeah, if you look back further in this thread, basically it comes down to this:

spider.device worked with Poseidon v2/v3

spider.device does NOT work with Poseidon v4.  The author of Poseidon says that elbox needs to update the driver, but the latest driver from elbox still doesn't work.  

Damn.  How about trying older spider devices?  I've got a older MMCD for the A4000.

I see that the last upadte on the Elbox website for the Spider device was in 2008 to v3.18.

I'm going to drop them an email and see if I can get some clarification.

Edit:  Email sent.  I'll let you know if I get an answer.

[Darrin]

Thanks for the help  I did a bit more research.  Apparently, the author of the Poseidon stack (Chris Hodges) had a falling out with Elbox when he found out they were selling PCI USB cards with illegitimate keyfiles for Poseidon.  So, v3.4 will work with spider.device for a spider 1 card, v3.8 will work with a spider II spider.device, but since then the support for spider.device has been removed

The kicker is that I can't find Poseidon 3.8 ANYWHERE, and it is probably illegal for me to go asking for a keyfile for 3.8 even if I do find the software...and it's impossible to get a new keyfile.

Chris' "falling out" with Elbox predates the v4.4 update by a long way, so when he says:

Poseidon V4.4, available since February last year, has no longer any keyfile protection or similar code in it. If you want to use it with the spider.device, I'm not stopping you from. If it doesn't work due to bugs in the spider.device, you should contact Elbox for an updated driver. Apart from removing the "compatibility hack" in the V4.x versions (which simply did not send the reset command to the driver at start), I do not see any reasons why it shouldn't work.

You won't get "proper" USB 2.0 support though (regarding split transfers and such), but rather the way it was in Poseidon V2.x/V3.x, because as far as I know Elbox has not updated their driver in that direction. The docs how to do this are in the AROS repository.

This is as far as my support for the Spider gets.

I really don't see any deliberate attempt to make his stack not work with the Spider.

It is all rather confusing.

[Darrin]

and for the record, Elbox haven't replied to my email... yet.

[Darrin]

Mediator is still interesting for a towerized A1200 which has no native zorro slots. Zorro busboards for the A1200 won't garantee you that those expensive zorro cards will work fine on your setup.
For any other amiga computer, i agree that there are enough good zorro boards available.

The Mediator is also handy for big box Amigas.  When I installed a Mediator in my A4000 I ordered a 256MB Radeon card from Elbox.  While I was waiting I tried two ancient and dusty ViRGE cards I had lying around that were salvaged from old PCs and they both worked brilliantly and certainly felt as fast, if not faster than my Cybervision643D.  Another "junk" SB128 card also worked.  If you just add up what a good Zorro graphics & sound card would cost you then that certainly helps to offset the cost of a Mediator board.  Of course it would be nice if the software for the Spider card was available/worked.

[Darrin]

I have a towerized a4000 with Mediator 4000D.  Now that I have finally gotten all of my pci cards working (voodoo3, spider II, fast ethernet, sb128) I have a fully expanded and very versatile computer  Granted, I have a cv64/3d with scandoubler for everything the voodoo3 can't do...basically, most things aside from workbench, actually, but at least my wb looks great.  The USB and fast ethernet are AWESOME.  I guess now all I need is a ppc board

But yeah,  I'm a believer in the mediator.  It makes the A4000 quite a bit more interesting, without taking anything away.

I'm trying to work out how to cram an Emplant II card and a PCI Catweasle into mine.  

[Darrin]

@ Mike,

Thanks for your help via email with my Deneb issues.  Much appreciated.