Potentially cheap solution to fast serial on Amiga...

[Floid]

Just stumbled across this thing, which is not actually an Ethernet hub -- it's 8 RJ45 RS-232 ports intended to be driven over SCSI.  (Already warned the vendor, so they might move it to another category shortly.  It's a Central Data ST-1800 for $4, if they do.)

The programming interface probably isn't too complex, though I have no idea where you'd get documentation.  I also haven't bothered figuring out what their idea of 'normal' vs. 'high performance' really means.

But at these prices in the surplus market, perhaps supporting some sort of hardware like this would be a fun project for someone?

Edit:  docs here, looks like 57600 is the peak rate for the 'normal' ones, so maybe it's not horribly exciting.

[patrik]

@Floid:

This sounds interesting. According the docs you supplied, it is on the SCSI-level implemented as a standard SCSI communications device and should atleast be acting correctly. The docs you supplied was well speced so the biggest problem would probably be to find someone to write a nice serial device for it.

Regarding the speed - 57600 is plenty enough for it to be useful. I also saw the Sx-1600 model which was supposed to have "high performance serial ports" and should thus be able to to even higher than the 57600 of the ST-1800 as its serial ports was just denoted as "serial ports".


/Patrik