templon@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (jeffrey templon) (05/13/91)
Is it possible to put 3B2 hardware in a 3B1? I am particularly interested in cards, like a serial-port card or a LAN card. JT
dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (DoN Nichols) (05/14/91)
In article <1991May13.045604.29480@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> templon@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (jeffrey templon) writes: > >Is it possible to put 3B2 hardware in a 3B1? I am particularly interested >in cards, like a serial-port card or a LAN card. I don't believe so. I've not seen the 3b2 hardware (except for the XM expansion chassis, which I am using with my 7300 (3b1 without the hump) to provide power and housing to two hard disk drives and the floppy-tape drive. - I don't think that that counts :-) Since the 3b1 was designed and manufactured by Convergent Technologies, around the mc68010, and the 3b2 was designed and manufactured by another (possibly AT&T itself ?) around a proprietary cpu chip which comes from AT&T, with its own bus, I suspect that anything which plugs directly into the bus would not be directly exchangeable. (I don't exclude the possibility that a sufficiently dedicated hardware hacker could make an adaptor from the s4-bus (that of the 3b1, stands for Safari-4 - Convergent's designation from the machine), to the bus of the 3b2. He would then need the assistance of a sufficiently-dedicated kernel hacker to write drivers for the different hardware.) It could (perhaps) be done, but would it be worth the trouble? Good Luck DoN. -- Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 664-1585 D&D Data | Voice (Eves): (703) 938-4564 Disclaimer: from here - None | Email: <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com> --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---