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Author Topic: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?  (Read 6073 times)

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Offline PlazTopic starter

ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« on: September 28, 2003, 11:37:14 PM »
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
 

Offline tonyw

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2003, 11:51:07 PM »
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
 

Offline jeffimix

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2003, 02:00:57 AM »
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
\\"The only benchmarks that matter is my impression of the system while using the apps I use. Everything else is opinion.\\" - FooGoo
 

Offline PlazTopic starter

Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2003, 02:19:45 AM »
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
 

Offline DoomMaster

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2003, 05:18:49 AM »
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:
[color=FF0033]1 Amiga 2500 / 040, 2 Amiga 2000HDs, Atari Mega4 ST, Pentium 4 PC, Macintosh SE[/color]
 

Offline JimS

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2003, 05:54:16 AM »
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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Offline Crumb

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2003, 10:05:08 AM »
you can use etherbridge.lha from aminet. I use it with an NE2000 card...
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Offline FrankBrana

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2003, 10:42:57 AM »
Quote
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 canĀ“t live without  :-D  :-D  :-D
 

Offline whabang

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2003, 11:40:00 AM »
Is there any SVGA drivers availible??? (thinking about the stack of SVGA cards I have lying around...)
Beating the dead horse since 2002.
 

Offline Amiga1200PPC

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2003, 12:57:32 PM »
Look at the Cybergraphics Page.
But there are no drivers for bridge cards,
 

Offline Jope

Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2003, 12:57:48 PM »
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.
 

Offline Crumb

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2003, 01:02:59 PM »
I get around 400Kbytes/s with my cbm 286 bridgeboard too.
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Offline Kronos

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2003, 03:14:20 PM »
@whabang

Well there was the Omnibus, a special (passive) bridgeboard
plus a 1MB-ET4000-ISA-card.
1. Make an announcment.
2. Wait a while.
3. Check if it can actually be done.
4. Wait for someone else to do it.
5. Start working on it while giving out hillarious progress-reports.
6. Deny that you have ever announced it
7. Blame someone else
 

Offline Lex

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2003, 04:50:56 PM »
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.

Offline Lex

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Re: ISA slots on an amiga, useless?
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2003, 04:57:00 PM »
Another similar (ISA ET4000 on Zorro II) card is the  Domino.

Quote

Kronos wrote:

Well there was the Omnibus, a special (passive) bridgeboard
plus a 1MB-ET4000-ISA-card.