there are certainly PCI IDE controllers, such as the promise ones, and there are PCI cards with serial or parallel ports on them, but as far as i know they always require a driver to remap addresses into legacy ones (someone else can probably explain the details better) - they can never be used seamlessly (for instance in DOS) like an ISA one can be, and VLB of course incorporates the ISA slot so it doesn't have these issues. same thing probably goes for PCI floppy controllers.

for those '93-'94 era PCI boards with no I/O on them i'd argue that going with a regular ISA I/O card plus PCI SCSI would have been the obvious route - if your machine was that cutting edge might as well go the full way. NCR had their HBAs out in 1993 and the adaptec 2940 came out sometime in mid-1994, i believe, and there were other vendors too. there were some PCI IDE options during that time as well but to my knowledge these weren't actually first party DMA devices, that's something that only became popular later with 430FX.

PCI/ISA board with no I/O? which one is that? ^^

I'm not aware of any PCI multi I/O cards though

There are a few reasons why no PCI multi I/O card exists. Multi I/O cards, and the Super I/O chips that followed them, integrate and implement various legacy hardware of the original PC and PC/AT, depending on what the motherboard chipset lacked.

1. When PCI first appeared, computers still had ISA slots, so ISA Multi I/O worked fine.
2. When the ATX standard for motherboards took over from the AT standard, ISA slots were still around, but the legacy ports moved onto the motherboard directly, so no need for a card.
3. Components such as the keyboard/mouse controller, real-time clock, floppy disk controller, serial ports, and the parallel port were all originally ISA devices, so for compatibility reasons, they stay on the ISA/LPC bus. Even very recent motherboards still have a portion of the LPC bus implemented, despite not having ISA slots.

Of course, there are PCI cards that provide each of these legacy ports for legacy-free computers (except for the clock, which is always integrated), but I'm not aware of a PCI card that supplies all of them. The most I've seen is a combo serial/parallel card. For the parallel ports and floppy disk controller PCI cards, do they even work in DOS? DOS (and the default Windows 9x drivers) are expecting these devices to speak ISA, and for the parallel ports and floppy controller especially, that means ISA DMA and ISA IRQs.

wasn't unheard of with socket 4 boards - the combination of big socket, lack of component integration including the chipset, tons of DIP sockets and lots of PCI/ISA slots could necessitate that. i have posted about such a board here.

if any 430FX board existed with no I/O though, that actually would be quite surprising.

imi wrote on 2021-04-16, 14:25:

PCI/ISA board with no I/O? which one is that? ^^

I'm not aware of any PCI multi I/O cards though

This one

LightStruk wrote on 2021-04-16, 14:41:

There are a few reasons why no PCI multi I/O card exists. Multi I/O cards, and the Super I/O chips that followed them, integrate and implement various legacy hardware of the original PC and PC/AT, depending on what the motherboard chipset lacked.
.....
..

Yes that makes sense. Thank you.

Looks like a two slot setup for I/O+Boot no matter what way you go. I might have a promise IDE controller in a drawer somewhere 😀

Some multi I/O PCI cards...
- GIGABYTE GA-107
- GIGABYTE GA-108
- SUNIX 5249P
- TYAN S1363-004
- TYAN S1366

Zup wrote on 2021-04-16, 15:32:

Some multi I/O PCI cards... - GIGABYTE GA-107 - GIGABYTE GA-108 - SUNIX 5249P - TYAN S1363-004 - TYAN S1366 […]
Show full quote

Some multi I/O PCI cards...
- GIGABYTE GA-107
- GIGABYTE GA-108
- SUNIX 5249P
- TYAN S1363-004
- TYAN S1366

Wow. thanks . I have NEVER seen anything like those. Gona keep an eye out, although they do seem rare and not without issues.
But if I can get a umc based one with this umc pci motherboard. That might just do 😀 Some day.

Zup wrote on 2021-04-16, 15:32:

Some multi I/O PCI cards... - GIGABYTE GA-107 - GIGABYTE GA-108 - SUNIX 5249P - TYAN S1363-004 - TYAN S1366 […]
Show full quote

Some multi I/O PCI cards...
- GIGABYTE GA-107
- GIGABYTE GA-108
- SUNIX 5249P
- TYAN S1363-004
- TYAN S1366

at least the gigabyte cards are meant for very specific gigabyte boards that have some ISA signals wired into the PCI slot, see here: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/marketplace … ntroller/page2=

auron wrote on 2021-04-16, 17:25:

Zup wrote on 2021-04-16, 15:32:

Some multi I/O PCI cards... - GIGABYTE GA-107 - GIGABYTE GA-108 - SUNIX 5249P - TYAN S1363-004 - TYAN S1366 […]
Show full quote

Some multi I/O PCI cards...
- GIGABYTE GA-107
- GIGABYTE GA-108
- SUNIX 5249P
- TYAN S1363-004
- TYAN S1366

at least the gigabyte cards are meant for very specific gigabyte boards that have some ISA signals wired into the PCI slot, see here: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/marketplace … ntroller/page2=

Oh good catch. That pretty much settles it then. ISA I/O and PCI storage.

auron wrote on 2021-04-16, 17:25:

Zup wrote on 2021-04-16, 15:32:

Some multi I/O PCI cards... - GIGABYTE GA-107 - GIGABYTE GA-108 - SUNIX 5249P - TYAN S1363-004 - TYAN S1366 […]
Show full quote

Some multi I/O PCI cards...
- GIGABYTE GA-107
- GIGABYTE GA-108
- SUNIX 5249P
- TYAN S1363-004
- TYAN S1366

at least the gigabyte cards are meant for very specific gigabyte boards that have some ISA signals wired into the PCI slot, see here: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/marketplace … ntroller/page2=

Fascinating! It's like SBLink aka PC/PCI, but for Super I/O, to get those ISA signals to a PCI card.

I wonder if that's similar to those early PCI IDE cards that came with a "paddle" connector that plugged into an ISA slot?

auron wrote on 2021-04-16, 14:42:

if any 430FX board existed with no I/O though, that actually would be quite surprising.

Sorry for necroposting, but I just got ASUS PCI/E-P54NP4 - dual Socket 5(7) with no I/O ports whatsoever.

But I will probably end up with separate I/O cards for different purposes.