> The only way I can believe this project might really fly is to stick with
> easy to use parts and keep the design simple. Otherwise it will never get
> done.
I agree I think the ide+floppy+uarts+parallel+game should go on the ISA.
Inegrated ide+floppy+uarts+parallel+game on motherboard :
Takes the integrated chip, two 1488's and two 1489's and
appropriate conectors.
ISA solution :
Full ISA requires 1.5 sets of address lines (latched and unlatched),
several slave DMA channels, bus mastering support, variable bus sizing,
etc.
If all people are going to do with the ISA bus is stick things
that are missing on the motherboard in it, it's going to be cheaper
and easier for us to grab the appropriate address lines, chipselects, etc
and connect them directly to the appropriate chips than it is for
us to implement a full or even partial ISA bus implementation.
As to ISA for "expansion" - in a workstation, I need ethernet, disk,
tape, video, and serial ports. For expansion, as long as I can add
memory and disk as they get cheaper or my vendor "upgrades"
his software, I'm happy and don't need any sort of card slots.
--------
|