I've got a VL/ EISA build that I'd like to finish, but I seem to be stuffing it full of ISA cards, with only VGA allocated to a VLB slot and a NIC to an EISA slot.
Ultimately, I'd still be content with that, but all those EISA slots are asking to be used. I know the MCA bus got some sound hardware for gaming purposes, but what about EISA?
Not that I know of. Outside of video, network, scsi there might be a couple video editing setups for EISA.
Collector of old computers, hardware, and software
The best part about EISA is that you can drop any old ISA sound card in the slot.
The main part of the EISA target market probably didn't even want a sound card in the machine. The only good reason to have EISA is I/O controllers - hard drives.
wrote:The main part of the EISA target market probably didn't even want a sound card in the machine. The only good reason to have EISA is I/O controllers - hard drives.
I've got hard drives covered by EISA; the board has an integraded SCSI controller on this bus, alongside the NIC on EISA and VGA on VL bus, that leaves 6 32bit EISA slots free. Basically, just looking to use more of this bus, but there doesn't seem to be anything... I suppose the bus being backwards compatible made sound cards redundant.
However, I did come across datasheets referencing soundcards with EISA specs. For example, mentioned in a Crystal chipset datasheet (page 10):
"The model for this interface is the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, but the CS4248 will easily interface to other buses such EISA and micro channel."
So, at least there was hardware engineered for it. EISA had a few years run and if any sound cards were made, they're probably long gone by now.
I've never seen or heard of an EISA soundcard, and I doubt there would be much of a point seeing as how most ISA soundcards were basically only using the 8-bit portion of the card edge anyway.
If you've got NIC and HDD controllers on EISA bus, then you're doing okay.
"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium
I noticed a big speed up in FPS on my at the time Duron 800 when going from an ISA sound card to a PCI card. So it seems like the ISA cards limited my performance, so maybe an EISA card would be useful?
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I've never heard of an EISA sound card, nor any reference or hinting of one. I seriously doubt one was ever made for commercial sale to the public.
386DX-40MHz-8MB-540MB+428MB+Speedstar64@2MB+SoundBlaster Pro+MT-32/MKII
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