>
> > You all might have noticed that the NEC chip has built-in EISA
> > support. That does not mean that we have to use EISA as our bus
> > system. The chip also provides a nearly complete 386 bus, so it
> > shouldn't be a problem to add some ISA chips.
> >
> > Andy
>
> EISA is a pretty good bus, something like 6 times the bandwidth of ISA.
>
> Isn't it completely upward compatible from ISA (i.e. we can use it just
> like a ISA bus).
Yes, EISA is totally upward compatible with ISA. It has a max clock rate the
same as ISA (8.xxx Mhz I believe) but it has 4byte transfer capability to
get to somewhere around 30+ MB/sec trasnfer rates. This rate is good enough
for most high speed IO with the possible exceptions of video and future high
speed LANs (FDDI...).
>
> I certainly wouldn't object to an EISA bus on the riscy board, and if
> the ARC chips support it it's practically free.
>
I strongly agree. If it has EISA then that implies ISA support for free and
EISA is good enough reason to go with it.
> I believe the ARC 100 manufacturing kits include plans for 3 EISA boards
> Etherenet/serial, audio/mouse, and video. Whether we we use any of those
> would just be a price/performance decision.
>
> --
> Bill 1st> Broadley@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu
> Broadley@schneider3.lrdc.pitt.edu <2nd 3rd>
> Broadley+@pitt.edu
P.S. What is the overall status of this effort. I haven't followed closely
but I gather that it is still in discussion and planning stages apparently
discarding R3000 architecture for R4000. I agree with the decision, but
keep in mind that this market move incredibly fast these days. Discuss, plan,
strategize for a few months and a whol new set of options become available.
Let's get this going! Not to decide is to decide! Power to the people...
(sorry I'm back now! whew I was stuck in the sixties for a minute).
Dan Fishman (dfishman@csn.org) (W) (303) 469-6469 (Fax) (303) 465-4396
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