95DosBox wrote:Wow after the heated debate of if someone copied another company's MB but still no one has bought and tested the "IMIG41-2ISA" w […]
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RayeR wrote:Hi,
I had spent a lot of time and money hunting ISA+audio stuff in the past. I have maintaned modern ISA-enabled MB list on my p […]
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Hi,
I had spent a lot of time and money hunting ISA+audio stuff in the past. I have maintaned modern ISA-enabled MB list on my personal site:
http://rayer.g6.cz/hardware/mbisa.htm
I would like to clarify one thing - it doesn't matter if the ISA bridgde is manufactured by Winbond, ITE, Fintek or someone else... What matters is how it is connected to host system. If it is PCI2ISA bridge and the southbridge is ICH6 or newer you have no chance run ISA DMA because intel removed some important legacy lines from the ICH so blame intel and not the bridge manufacturer. If you have ICH5 and older it still may not be enough to support ISA DMA because it depends if all necessary lines was routed properly (and if it is properly configured by BIOS). I have one MB with i845+ICH4 with Winbond PCI2ISA bridge and it works fine with my SB AWE64: http://rayer.g6.cz/hardware/azxab100.htm
On some minority MBs is used a different host connection - LPC2ISA bridge. I received a positive report from one guy that have such MB (intel G41 with Fintek F85226FG bridge) and after some tweaking of bridge config he got ISA DMA working. I'd like to hear about another successfull story on similar or newer MB.
Wow after the heated debate of if someone copied another company's MB but still no one has bought and tested the "IMIG41-2ISA" which could be the most compatible from the list that might work with the SB ISA Sound Card? Curious if anyone ended up buying that motherboard and testing it...
🙄
Stumbled upon an interesting adapter...
http://www.phantom.sannata.ru/forum/index.php … =372&a=do_print
http://rd.foto.radikal.ru/0709/4a/452d6ffb815e.jpg
Sadly IEI IMBA-G412ISA you mentioned doesn't have functional ISA just like Intel said. I had one, though I'm currently running it for a different purpose.
For DOS purposes, at best you can make good use of your sound card's FM synth for some old games and for music trackers, in a way better than PCI sound cards. (AFAICT when Intel removed PC-PCI related stuffs they also broke everything PCI sound cards relied on to get functional DOS audio, except Aureal which seemed to be a different approach)
Again, I'm yet to hear of any practical ideas on making the ISA slots on boards of ICH6 or later actually useful...
EDIT: Should additionally mention something that's been bugging me about the IMBA-G412ISA board I'm running.
1. Its BIOS contains both IRQ and DMA assignment settings (Available for PCI/PnP or Reserved for Legacy ISA), despite the board doesn't appear to have any DMA capabilities (hence the DMA switches are mostly useless).
2. The BIOS changelog contained a line about leaving IRQ11 Reserved for ISA PnP, and an earlier AMI BIOS revision mentioned about something called Bear Card.
4. IRQ11 reserve for ISA PnP card.
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# Action : SA28MR12 (base on SA28MR11)
# Date : 0 […]
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# Action : SA28MR12 (base on SA28MR11)
# Date : 06/26/2012
# CheckSum : 2E45h
# Sign_On_Message: SA28 V1.2 (06/26/2012)
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1.Fix ISA Bear Card test fail.
I dunno what this Bear Card really is, but an assumption would probably be one of the ISA test cards here... Still, I don't know what it really means about fixing failed tests, is it about DMA, or something else that shouldn't (e.g. I/O, IRQ)?
3. The board has an early UEFI-capable BYOSOFT BIOS available (released until 2011, the BR14 version. It works, but feels kinda buggy, given the amount of bugs mentioned in the changelog). In the BYOSOFT BIOS changelogs, contains statements about ISA support, and also another reference about Bear Card.
4. SA28 project support ISA Slot for ISA device.
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Version : SA28BR14 Base On (SA28BR13)
Date : 20 […]
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Version : SA28BR14 Base On (SA28BR13)
Date : 2011/07/06
CheckSum : 6183H
Sign-on Message : NO
Action :
1:Set IRQ7/IRQ5 default as "Reserved" to patch bear card test fail.
2: Set user press "DEL" or "F2" can both enter BIOS setup.
Those official statements seem to talk about ISA support that has been tested working, but in reality the ISA capabilities are the same as other boards of ICH6 or later. This is what confuses me. Additionally, chipset register hacks regarding ISA DMA obviously won't work.