johnb@yang.earlham.edu (12/13/90)
Can any one tell me the important differences between EISA and ISA busses. In particular, wont a 32-bit bus b important down the road? why not get a EISA bus? Any help is appreciated. John Benjamin johnb@earlham.bitnet
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (12/13/90)
In article <5908@yang.earlham.edu> johnb@yang.earlham.edu writes: | Can any one tell me the important differences between EISA and ISA busses. EISA costs more. With correct cards *and* software capable of using the extra bandwidth you can get better performance. | In particular, wont a 32-bit bus b important down the road? | why not get a EISA bus? In addition to cost some ISA boards don't work in some vendor's EISA busses. I would be sure there was a need for it before going EISA at this point. I don't believe everyone who sells one has their act totally together. Configuration of ISA boards in an EISA system is a royal pain! | Any help is appreciated. Don't know if that helps or not. We've had enough funniness with EISA timing to avoid it when not needed. When the boards come down in price or for top end applications it will be a better buy. In particular multiple disk controllers or a multithreaded controller would benefit from the bandwidth, assuming a multitasking o/s was being run to take advantage of it. -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
kirsch@ux.acs.umn.edu (Dave Kirsch) (12/15/90)
In article <5908@yang.earlham.edu> johnb@yang.earlham.edu writes: >Can any one tell me the important differences between EISA and ISA busses. > >In particular, wont a 32-bit bus b important down the road? >why not get a EISA bus? Yes, EISA is a 32-bit bus, and yes, a 32-bit bus will probably be important at some point down the road. However (correct me if I'm wrong; I'm sure someone will), if you have an EISA system all expansion boards must be EISA boards or you will lose the functionality of all of them - assuming that at least on of your expansion boards is an EISA board. (i.e. You won't be able to have an EISA board and, say, an 8-bit game adapter card installed in the same system and have full functionality - if any.) The main advantage *I* personally have seen in EISA systems over regular ISA systems is that bus-mastering is *far* more reliable. My *personal* advice is to buy an ISA system if you just want an affordable yet very capable PC. If you want a 32-bit bus, buy a Microchannel machine. Before people start flaming me to death, listen up; I wouldn't even have thought of recommending this until a couple of months ago, when IBM opened up the Microchannel standard. (i.e. They're not gonna hold people hostage if they want to build a Microchannel machine. IBM still has the final say on modifications to Microchannel, but people are no longer going to be ripped off for outrageous licensing fees in order to build a Microchannel machine.) Note that this is only my opinion. I think ISA machines are more than enough for anything most people want to do these days. However, I also think that Microchannel is technically far superior to EISA. As long as IBM is no longer going to keep Microchannel 'proprietary', I think it's the way to go. >Any help is appreciated. > >John Benjamin >johnb@earlham.bitnet Hope this helps a *little* bit. Dave Kirsch kirsch@ux.acs.umn.edu ".. so, like, if you were in outer space and you blew your wad, would go on for infinity" - Billy in 'Patti Rocks'