caw@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Chris Wichura) (12/28/89)
There are now a number of serial boards available for the A2000, such as ASDG's dual-port one and the new Commodore board (is it out yet?), and I think I have seen adds for one or two others. My question is: is it posibile to make a serial board for the A500? I know that I would be interested in one. I would assume that it would have to be hooked up via the expansion port on the left side of the A500, but if that was done it would ABSOLUTELY have to have a bus passthrough on it as almost all A500 hard drives are attached here. Any hardware gurus out there know the doability of such a beast? Christopher A. Wichura (u12401@uicvm.uic.edi -- my home account)
mdinn@ac.dal.ca (12/28/89)
In article <2577@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US>, caw@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Chris Wichura) writes: > [..stuff about serial boards going in the expansion port deleted... ] > Any hardware gurus out there know the doability of such a beast? > Would it be possible to write a driver for the paralell port? Or for the joystick ports? All you really need to support are Send Receive DTR Carrier Detect ... and probably one more I've missed. Any software Guru's want to try that one out? > Christopher A. Wichura (u12401@uicvm.uic.edi -- my home account) Michael Dinn - MDINN@AC.DAL.CA
mkd@mtunh.ATT.COM (Mark Darby) (12/29/89)
In message <2577@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US>, Chris Wichura writes: >There are now a number of serial boards available for the A2000, such as >ASDG's dual-port one and the new Commodore board (is it out yet?), and I >think I have seen adds for one or two others. >My question is: is it posibile to make a serial board for the A500? I >know that I would be interested in one. I would assume that it would have >to be hooked up via the expansion port on the left side of the A500, but >if that was done it would ABSOLUTELY have to have a bus passthrough on it >as almost all A500 hard drives are attached here. >Any hardware gurus out there know the doability of such a beast? >Christopher A. Wichura (u12401@uicvm.uic.edi -- my home account) I myself have been running around asking vendors if these A2000 serial boards will run on A500s...you'd need an expansion chassis (and most likely a new power supply) to support it. The only explicit response I received was from ASDG, since they test the boards with A500s, but with hacked up chassis from Zorro I days. It was my understanding that they haven't tested their boards with any of the new expansion chassis available for the A500 (such as Tool Box, Bills' Board, etc.). If this is wrong or not true anymore, someone please correct me. Thus the answer to your question is yes, an A500 serial board is doable. Because of the limited power supply on the A500, a new power supply would be necessary (or a separate power supply for the board). Here's my $0.02 worth... I'd like to see some "public-domain" (is this the right term for it?) hardware work for the A500, much like the LUCAS and FRANCES boards were for the A1000. A serial board would be an interesting project, as well as (gasp!) an ethernet board!. Note: I'm talking about making boards specific for an A500 environment (86-pin connector, taking A500 power limitations into consideration, etc.), not making boards for an A2000 and then expecting the A500 owner to get a chassis. That defeats the purpose of the exercise. What interest is there in such projects? This would seem like a reasonable response to vendors who are more supportive of the A2000 architecture than the A500 architecture. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark K. Darby AT&T Bell Laboratories 200 Laurel Ave. uucp:..!att!mtunh!mkd Middletown, NJ 07748 Disclaimer: The opinions made above do not reflect the opinions of my employer.