VOGONS


Reply 40 of 55, by mrwr1ght

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Hi guys,

Is anyone here willing to part with any of this quirky vintage stuff? I'm particularly interested in the gigabyte local bus. I have the motherboard, but nothing else!

Cheers guys in advance!

Reply 41 of 55, by NJRoadfan

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Another card with new bus popped up in an ebay auction. Don't know the name of it, but the FCC ID indicates this board was made by Acer. It uses a 2nd ISA slot similar to the Gigabyte local bus, but the slot is offset further back on the motherboard.

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Last edited by NJRoadfan on 2023-09-20, 02:16. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 42 of 55, by NJRoadfan

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Some more photos of the Acer card. This time the rear. Looking around, this may slot into the Acer J1 motherboard: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/acer-j1

PC World January 1993 Page 113 Mentions it: https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World … anuary_1993.pdf

Needless to say, the Model 5657 took first place in every test. Aside from its high-speed CPU, it boasts all the right performance features, including 8MB of RAM , a 256K external memory cache, an EISA bus, and a video accelerator described by Acer's strategic planning manager L. Pablo Grodnitzky as "a proprietary local-bus graphics adapter using ATI's high-performance video chip and our own proprietary ASICs."

So this was firmly an OEM special bus.

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Reply 43 of 55, by rasz_pl

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NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-09-20, 02:16:

PC World January 1993 Page 113 Mentions it: https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World … anuary_1993.pdf

Needless to say, the Model 5657 took first place in every test. Aside from its high-speed CPU, it boasts all the right performance features, including 8MB of RAM , a 256K external memory cache, an EISA bus, and a video accelerator described by Acer's strategic planning manager L. Pablo Grodnitzky as "a proprietary local-bus graphics adapter using ATI's high-performance video chip and our own proprietary ASICs."

unsurprisingly nothing on that card is proprietary 😀 ATI TI Lattice National Excel IDT/Renesas OKI ST, everything off the shelf :] That was the beauty of VLB, you could build it from parts bin with no investment in new chip designs.

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 44 of 55, by mpe

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I ended up buying it. I kind of collect this sort of stuff and at first thought it might be a gigabyte local bus card. It is nice to have Mach32 card in all its bus variants (got ISA, PCI, VLB, EISA and this one, only missing MCA or more?). I think none of the other chipsets had so many bus options (maybe perhaps ET4000AX)

DSC_2748-scaled.jpg

Blog|NexGen 586|S4

Reply 47 of 55, by DerBaum

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mpe wrote on 2023-10-06, 08:39:

I doubt it. That one is a 386 with memory expansion slot.

Year... 1992 (based on the date on the chips of the card) seemed a little bit too new for a 386.

Would you say its probably from a 486? That would make more sense as a 386.

FCKGW-RHQQ2

Reply 48 of 55, by mrwr1ght

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Can 'eisapc' message me again, I know it's been almost a year, as my account is restricted and I can't message you back, as I'm still seen as a "new user" after nearly 3 years, so still have restrictions... SMH

Reply 49 of 55, by mrwr1ght

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@mpe I have an MCA ATI card somewhere, I think it could be the Mach32 you are looking for? It's an add-in, so requires a 2d card, much like the 3DFX Voodoo series Where in town are you? I currently spend most of my time north of the river.

Reply 50 of 55, by NJRoadfan

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OS/2 Museum has pictures of all the retail Mach32 bus variants for reference: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/children-of-the-bus-wars/

The MCA card has jumpers to disable its onboard VGA circuit and use the onboard VGA if installed in an aux. video extension slot. Very few are likely to do that that as the Mach32's VGA core is likely faster then a PS/2's onboard VGA.

Reply 51 of 55, by mrwr1ght

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Once again, I have to ask "eisapc" to message me... and leave me a way to contact you, as you contacted me in the past about a card that you have/had that I may wish to possess.

Let me be very clear this time, I cannot message you back, due to policies on this site. I am not having a go at you, or anyone here, but the frustrating policies on this site, and I don't want to spam every single post!!

Reply 52 of 55, by akimmet

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If I'm not mistaken, the ability to private message is tied to post count. Not join date.

Almost every forum has a similar policy. This is to limit the amount of damage a spam account can make.
Very few spammers can resist outing themselves before gaining private message privileges. Where as it is suprisingly common for long dormant zero or low post accounts to suddenly become a source of spam.

Reply 53 of 55, by techweenie

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I have the ECS FX-3000 now because I thought it was VLB when I purchased it. It didn't have the "ELB" connector, so I soldered it in. Only after that did I discover it isn't VLB. I'm not interested in acquiring an impossible to find video card, so if anyone would like to purchase the motherboard just let me know. It is tested with a 486 and ISA video card.

Reply 54 of 55, by mrwr1ght

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techweenie wrote on 2024-09-17, 04:04:

I have the ECS FX-3000 now because I thought it was VLB when I purchased it. It didn't have the "ELB" connector, so I soldered it in. Only after that did I discover it isn't VLB. I'm not interested in acquiring an impossible to find video card, so if anyone would like to purchase the motherboard just let me know. It is tested with a 486 and ISA video card.

Yes I would potentially, Can you post some photos, if you can? This would go nicely with ther other oddballs that I have such as the "orchid local bus" and the "gigabyte local bus" (I know eisapc has or did have), and any other quirky systems like this such as the "Opti local bus" and any option cards.

I am based here in the UK, but as pointed out above, due to "spam" constraints, which I do get, just wish it had been implemented in a different way, to let's say 3 emails teach to a single person a month as the restriction, so based this little nugget, how am I to contact you without breaching guidelines?

Guys, kinly serious suggestions?

Kind regards

Reply 55 of 55, by rasz_pl

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So far Joindata Local Bus is the weirdest one as it seem to require special proprietary chips on extension cards. mpe's ET4000 Re: Pre-VESA Proprietary 32-bit Local Buses? uses Appian Peripheral IF P928 https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/appian_ … _local_bus_chip

"Sunnyvale, California-based Appian Technology Inc is shipping its P928 FAST Local Bus Peripheral Interface chip: it links a local 80486 CPU bus to AT peripherals and is said to enable designers to overcome the performance bottlenecked by an ageing AT bus structure; the P928 provides a 32-bit interface to the CPU bus and supports double-word read and write operations through internal byte conversion and control logic; the device implements zero wait-state posted write cycles enabling concurrent CPU-memory and peripheral operation; speculative read-ahead on graphics data is provided and fast AT cycles from the P928 are programmable in both wait-state and recovery time; the device permits both the P928 and AT bus to reside together and each can be individually enabled; the P928 chip comes in a 160-pin plastic quad at $18.83 in quantities of 5,000."

This might suggest it was supposed to be called 'FAST Local Bus'? On one hand "internal byte conversion" and "posted write cycles" probably means invisible 16bit upper/lower access swapping and build in FIFO, on the other hand $18 was a lot of $ in 1992 for cleverness. VESA managed to make do without intermediary FIFO for free (up to ~$4 using eight 74LS245s when adapting some VGA chips) 😀

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-09-20, 02:16:

Some more photos of the Acer card. This time the rear. Looking around, this may slot into the Acer J1 motherboard: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/acer-j1

Acer J1 looks especially quirky.
Proprietary Local Bus Check!
EISA Check!
Proprietary !L shaped! L2 cache connector Check!
Double sided SMD load Check!
Bodge wires, typical telltale signs of prototype design Check!
Two PAL chips used Check!
Keyboard controller in lower right corner Check!

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NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-09-20, 02:16:

PC World January 1993 Page 113 Mentions it: https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World … anuary_1993.pdf

Needless to say, the Model 5657 took first place in every test.

January 1993 first place, March 1993 meh and not recommended 😁 https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World … _March_1993.pdf with half of competitors using some kind of Local Bus video. Amazing speed of technology progress.

That March 1993 PC World shootout is a great lay of the land for PC busses. Best Performance winners:
1. Tangent Computer Model 466ex (page 120)
EISA video card, first because of Adaptec SCSI controller with 4MB Cache. Which Adaptec ? I only know about Tekram caching SCSI controllers.
2. Lodestar Computers 486LB OX2/66 Winstation (page 118)
"What's the source of all this speed? ... proprietary local-bus card for fast video. The local-bus implementation in this system is rather odd and looks like two back-to-back ISA slots. The 486LB DX2/66 Winstation has two of these slots" - Hey, sounds like Gigabyte GA-486US!
3. Hertz Computer 486/066X2e (page 117)
Lame ISA Diamond SpeedStar, on the list due to Ultrastor 15c IDE Caching controller https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ultr … ation-ultra-15c
4. Axik Computer Ace Cache 4860X2-66 (page 114)
Uses ISA ATI Graphics Ultra, but:
"The system also has a proprietary 32-bit localbus slot, which according to Axik accepts only Ace Cache Point 32 video board. Its unoccupied and can double as a regular 8/16-bit ISA slot"
5. Tri-Star Computer 486/66 DX2 VL-Station (page 121)
"a local-bus SCSl-2 adapter ... A local-bus ATI card" sounds like standard VESA VLB slots.

It almost like they ran all the test without SmartDrive? No other explanation for those caching disk controllers pushing average systems to the top.

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor