Yes, all of the ISA signals are available. The BIOS chip is on the ISA bus. Do you have an ISA to PCMCIA adapter card in mind and how much did/does it cost?
Turbo3.....I've got two different isa cards that allow the use of pcmcia cards. One is entirely contained in the isa card...This is a long card, you insert the pcmcia cards directly into it through the slot opening in the back of the computer. Both Win98 and WinME recognize it and have the correct drivers. I think it's ActionTech. The second is a shorter card with ribbon cables that connect to a pcmcia interface box that mounts into a 3.5" opening in the front of your computer....I never used this setup. It came with a digital camera I got off E-Bay. I have seen external pcmcia enclosures that connect to a isa card by a special cable. That would be a neat setup, if you could wire the card to the I-Opener board. Pcmcia data transfer is MUCH faster than USB....there are also many different pcmcia cards around. I've got a neat Linkys modem/lan combo card that I use in my Thinkpad. These sorts of isa cards are available off E-Bay......about 20-40 dollars. This would be a very useful hack....a lot of soldering....but neat.
I will volunteer one of my IO's for this task. :) If someone can give me the solder points to work with off the VIA chip, I'll scavenge an ISA socket off an old motherboard and use it. Perhaps this will finally allow me to use BeOS on one of my IO's. 10BaseT...oooooohhhh....
I'v got a databook isa pcicia adapter on my big computer.
Pcmcia would be great on the IO if it can be introduced with out killing space. some one could use a pcmcia hardware dvd decoder card, YES THEY DO MAKE THEM. and run it off a stock IO. or add other devices like a pcmcia wirless lan, pcmcia hard drive cdrom CDRW ect.. jaz, zip, super disk. plus flash media.
If I rememer correctly, the Yamaha sound chip is an ISA chip. (maybe it was the Analog Devices sound chip on a V5. I forget) I assume all the ISA signals were coming into this chip. You might have to search for the 16 bit extensions or some of the IRQ lines.
I don't remember if ISA is a true bus where you could just tap of the signals or if there are certain traces that need to run to only one ISA slot. I'm sorry if I have more questions than answers.
isa is a true bus, regulated by the irq lines, which are very likely to be included on the lines to the yamaha chip. (the v5 audio chip is not isa compatable)
Here's a basic question, what's the maximum ISA bus length? I hope its at least 3 inches, otherwise the signal is basically useless [unless you can somehow hack it onto the i-Opener board]. Any thoughts on this bus length delima?
I have checked out a few data, address, and the Terminal Count (TC) signals and they all go to test point pads on the back of the board. But the ISA bus has a lot of signals. Just for the 8 bit slot it is 53 signals plus another 29 for the long slot (16 bits). This is a lot of tracing and wiring to bring out a complete ISA slot. What signals do you really need? The PCI bus is only 54 signals (but line length is much much more critical).
For what I'm wanting to do PCI would be more functional....I don't know about everyone else though. :) I'll look at a PCI NIC and let you know. 54x2=104 solder connections....ow ow ow ow...the things I do for the joy of Be....
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