They won't work for things like soundcards, they would work for somthing like a serial port.

Didn't that company have a custom DOSBOX build that worked with one of their USB to ISA products ?

darry wrote on 2020-08-30, 03:00:

Didn't that company have a custom DOSBOX build that worked with one of their USB to ISA products ?

Yes. It should actually work with all of their USB to ISA products.

I have a couple of the 3-slot adapters but I haven't purchased a power supply yet.

darry wrote on 2020-08-30, 03:00:

Didn't that company have a custom DOSBOX build that worked with one of their USB to ISA products ?

It's nowhere on their website now, unless I missed something. Was it for a much older build of Dosbox?

schlomoe99 wrote on 2020-08-30, 22:03:

darry wrote on 2020-08-30, 03:00:

Didn't that company have a custom DOSBOX build that worked with one of their USB to ISA products ?

It's nowhere on their website now, unless I missed something. Was it for a much older build of Dosbox?

It was a while back. I don't know if they kept it up to date . I think it was discussed on Vogons at some point, but I do not recall anyone actually testing it with something like a sound card .

Their build of dosbox is still available. They also supply the source code so it could be implemented in a newer version of dosbox. They only provide the download link for the regular install when you buy an adapter.... link is on a sticker on the packaging the adapters come in.
http://arstech.com/install/cms-display/ste_uniformdos.html

I had to go searching for the dosbox download. In any case, here is the dosbox build and code:

Here are the download links for everything:
http://www.arstech.com/install2rel.zip
http://www.arstech.com/install2libs.zip
http://www.arstech.com/dosbox-rel.zip

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-08-30, 22:49:

Their build of dosbox is still available. They also supply the source code so it could be implemented in a newer version of dosb […]
Show full quote

Their build of dosbox is still available. They also supply the source code so it could be implemented in a newer version of dosbox. They only provide the download link for the regular install when you buy an adapter.... link is on a sticker on the packaging the adapters come in.
http://arstech.com/install/cms-display/ste_uniformdos.html

I had to go searching for the dosbox download. In any case, here is the dosbox build and code:
dosbox-rel.zip

Here are the download links for everything:
http://www.arstech.com/install2rel.zip
http://www.arstech.com/install2libs.zip
http://www.arstech.com/dosbox-rel.zip

Great work on all counts, this looks really useful!

I would be really curious to read about someone trying with an ISA sound card. Before I got into retro PCs, this theoretically seemed like an ideal solution for retro sound and maybe even video card use with a modern PC . Emulation where needed and authentic hardware audio and video, that would be a nice combo .

Sounds like I need to go ahead and order a power supply then. I actually bought the adapters from somebody. First one came damaged and they sent me another. They didn't come with the power adapters though.

The only thing about DOSBOX is that I am pretty sure only passthrough for OPL3 and I think MIDI so some other coding would need to be done to pass through digital audio though that part may not matter one lick.

Edit:
After looking at the power adapters on their site, I went looking for a cheaper option.
I ended up ordering a 50w adapter from Mouser which came out to 56.99 with tax and shipping compared to $69 + tax and shipping.
MEAN WELL
Mfr. #:GP50A13D-R1B
Mouser #:709-GP50A13D-R1B

Once it arrives, I will test and post back here with results. I will have to verify that the output on this power adapter is correct but from what I could find, it looks like there is a universal pinout for these types of power supplies.

That will also give us a way to reuse old AT or ATX power supplies for this if we want to by just making an adapter. For that matter, it could have the power drawn from the host computer's power supply but that might introduce electrical noise.

What would be nice if one creates a disk oriented board that emulates a PATA interface controller limited up to 8GB out of consideration to socket 5 and 7 boards. Also useable older PCs without custom CHS set up, also when partitioned on the some computers that can only choose one of type number like 340MB and boot DOS, partition then formatted and seen as 340MB. Then plug the usb stick into newer computers and transfer stuff to it then plug this back into classic computer and boot. More practical than SSD or CF, CF is expensive also not all are bootable.

Right now I have two PATA to SATA adapters based on Mavell's chip bridge yet to be tried on very vintage computers.

Cheers,

So USB thumb drive to PATA? Interesting idea though it would be likely way less reliable than CF.... Maybe start a new thread?

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-08-31, 01:09:

What would be nice if one creates a disk oriented board that emulates a PATA interface controller limited up to 8GB out of consideration to socket 5 and 7 boards. Also useable older PCs without custom CHS set up, also when partitioned on the some computers that can only choose one of type number like 340MB and boot DOS, partition then formatted and seen as 340MB. Then plug the usb stick into newer computers and transfer stuff to it then plug this back into classic computer and boot. More practical than SSD or CF, CF is expensive also not all are bootable.

Right now I have two PATA to SATA adapters based on Mavell's chip bridge yet to be tried on very vintage computers.

Cheers,

IMHO, an existing solution to most (maybe all) of those needs would be a SCSI BIOS equipped SCSI card plus a SCSI2SD .

A newly designed/made PCI device that can be seen as a SCSI controller or BUS mastering IDE/SATA controller, has functionality similar to SCSI2SD, emulates optical and removable devices, takes SD cards/USB devices/SATA devices and has DMA support would be even better .

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-30, 02:51:

They won't work for things like soundcards, they would work for somthing like a serial port.

I haven't tried, but I believe simple i/o transfer should work.
So AdLib Music Card, Creative Music System and Covox Soundmaster *could* work. Maybe Tandy 3-Voice and Speech Thing, even.
Sound Blaster 1.0 in non-DMA mode could work, too. And MPU401, perhaps, if IRQ2/9 is supported. Disney Sound Source likely will fail, since it is DMA-based.
Essentially, the 8-Bit ISA bus (aka PC/XT bus) is nothing more than a glorious Centronics-Port on sugar with IRQs and extra status lines.. 😉

Edit: So yes, normal soundcards likely won't work (in their native modes). 🙂
Such as SB Pro, SB16, AWE32, Gravis Ultrasound, WSS (?), PAS16 (?)..

I'm of the camp of thinking that it will work fine with ISA sound cards. You do have to have the software enumerator running before running DOSBox for it to work with DOSBox and they say it supports DMA so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

I'll just have to wait for the power adapter to arrive and see what we have to work with.

I'm a bit concerned about the latency and also the bandwidth of a series of short transfers.
But then again you probably wouldn't hook up a graphics card to this device.
Software-wise, it would obviously rely on sophisticated host-side emulation of the ISA bus.

As an alternative, one could maybe use the PCIe lanes of a thunderbolt link with a PCIe to PCI bridge and a PCI to ISA bridge.

Benedikt wrote on 2020-08-31, 14:36:

I'm a bit concerned about the latency and also the bandwidth of a series of short transfers. But then again you probably wouldn' […]
Show full quote

I'm a bit concerned about the latency and also the bandwidth of a series of short transfers.
But then again you probably wouldn't hook up a graphics card to this device.
Software-wise, it would obviously rely on sophisticated host-side emulation of the ISA bus.

As an alternative, one could maybe use the PCIe lanes of a thunderbolt link with a PCIe to PCI bridge and a PCI to ISA bridge.

The bridge thing won't work as there would be no ISA DMA support whatsoever. That part has to be handled in software. You would have to have some sort of special decoder for the ISA slot(s) and have a software enumerator sending the data to that decoder.

The USB to ISA adapter should be fine. ISA max transfer rate at the standard 8.33Mhz is way below what USB 2.0 can do.. plus you are sharing that bandwidth with all the ISA components in the system.
USB2.0 is rated at 480Mb/s.

Ok, so the power adapter has arrived and after a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth I have the driver installed.

1. The power adapter I ordered from Mouser is wired correctly for the usb2isa adapter.
2. The documentation is wrong on one of the power selection jumpers. Says it is supposed to be 2-3 (default) to use the external power adapter but it is supposed to be on 1-2. Bleh
3. You have to disable driver signing and to do this you also have to disable secure boot in the BIOS. No mention of having to do this in the manual but it does mention that the driver isn't signed... or rather the installer isn't signed. The driver it uses is a Microsoft one... winusb

After that the driver will install just fine.

Then you have to load the enumerator application by running it as admin. Once it comes up it freezes for a bit while it initializes.
I haven't actually tried it with an ISA card yet but it looks like it will auto detect resources... at least on non-pnp cards. I think you may have to manually add the needed resources for pnp cards from the looks of it but not 100% sure.
There are a couple of options once it initializes... for the type of software that will be controlling it... DOS/Win3.1 or Application based. If you choose application based it launches DOSBOX 0.74 (their included version).
For resources you can manually add I/O ports, memory addresses, IRQs (3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,14,15) and DMA (0,1,2,3,5,6,7)

It says to add resources only if they are not detected by the enumerator.

You can change the Rd/Wr time. Default is 250ns. Options range from 41ns to 2333ns.
You can enable Direct app. I/O access if running Windows 2000/xp/Vista.

So it looks like pretty much anything should work with it. I will try to do actual testing tomorrow.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-09-10, 07:59:

I haven't actually tried it with an ISA card yet but it looks like it will auto detect resources... at least on non-pnp cards. I think you may have to manually add the needed resources for pnp cards from the looks of it but not 100% sure.

Not the other way around?

The possibilities are tantalizing. Looking forward to the test!