mts10271@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael T Stepniczka) (05/16/91)
I was wondering if it is possible to add more than one card to the TT's VME slot. If not, is there any way to add stronger drivers or an external card cage? (I want to buy a TT at the end of the summer and plan to design a card for it in one of my lab classes. I hope it's more expandable than previous Atari systems! :-)) Thanks for any info! Michael Stepniczka mts10271@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu P.S. Thanks to those who replied to my rsrc_gaddr() posting- it's all clear now.
carter@cat23.cs.wisc.edu (Gregory Carter) (05/16/91)
In article <1991May16.065921.26031@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mts10271@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael T Stepniczka) writes: > > I was wondering if it is possible to add more than one card to >the TT's VME slot. If not, is there any way to add stronger drivers >or an external card cage? (I want to buy a TT at the end of the summer >and plan to design a card for it in one of my lab classes. I hope it's >more expandable than previous Atari systems! :-)) > Thanks for any info! > > Michael Stepniczka > mts10271@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu > >P.S. Thanks to those who replied to my rsrc_gaddr() posting- it's all > clear now. I made a rather large technical post on the VME capabilities of the MEGA STE and TT machine a while back. However, a german company makes an extended card cage for the TT/MEGA STE and VME cards for graphics and cpu accelerators. It was shown at the last CeBit show, I think. So yes, you can have more than one card with the addition of an external cage. However, don't expect to see anything like that here in the US. :( --Gregory
baffoni@aludra.usc.edu (Juxtaposer) (05/17/91)
In article <1991May16.163752.24994@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> carter@cat23.cs.wisc.edu (Gregory Carter) writes: <stuff deleted> > >However, a german company makes an extended card cage for the TT/MEGA STE >and VME cards for graphics and cpu accelerators. It was shown at the last >CeBit show, I think. Is it possible/have they already made an accelerator card that uses the buslines available on the VME/Atari (TT/mega)bus slots? Like for instance a 68040 board that takes over the machine (I've seen stuff like that for the Mac and thought you might be able to do the same thing) and delegates the on board cpu as an I/O handler (and other CPU wasting projects). However, I could be mistaken (_I_ don't use 'em, let alone build 'em), but would something like that be possible for the TT? Dave Small has already shown that it's possible for the ST...:) >However, don't expect to see anything like that here in the US. :( <sigh> > >--Gregory -Mike
apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) (05/21/91)
baffoni@aludra.usc.edu (Juxtaposer) writes: > Is it possible [to make] an accelerator card that uses >the buslines available on the VME/Atari (TT/mega)bus slots? Like for instance >a 68040 board that takes over the machine and delegates the on >board cpu as an I/O handler ... ? No, it's not, because the things that can go on the VME bus in the TT can't be bus masters. The TT's VME bus is slave-only, meaning the motherboard can instigate an access to the VME board, but not the other way around. It is not unreasonable to suppose that future Atari machines may have full-blown VME where the VME boards can be bus masters, and then you could do this. >Dave Small has already shown that it's possible >for the ST...:) No, he shows that it's possible to wire a 68030 into the ST. I don't know how he tells the 68000 to go to sleep; maybe you have to cut the whole thing loose, maybe you just have to cut a few traces (like power and ground :-) to get it out of the circuit. ============================================ Opinions expressed above do not necessarily -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp. reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. ...ames!atari!apratt