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From: Andreas Busse <andy@resi.waldorf-gmbh.de>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 14:15:43 +0200
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To: riscy@pyramid.com
Subject: Re:  EISA?
Sender: owner-riscy@pyramid.com
Reply-To: riscy@pyramid.com


> EISA is a pretty good bus, something like 6 times the bandwidth of ISA.

Agreed.

> Isn't it completely upward compatible from ISA (i.e. we can use it just
> like a ISA bus).

No, it's completely incompatibel, from all 3 points of view:
- connector (different pin spacing)
- hardware  (different signals)
- software  (probably, don't really know)

> I certainly wouldn't object to an EISA bus on the riscy board, and if
> the ARC chips support it it's practically free.

No, it wouldn't be free. The ARCset just has a few lines intended
to be used to control the Intel EISA chipset.

Again, quoted from the data sheets (uPD31432, page 107):

6.7 BUS SLAVE INTERFACES

The uPD31432 supports two types of external bus masters: 386-type bus
masters, and an EISA expansion bus interface based on the Intel 82350
EISA chipset.

[end of quoted material]

That means that we can

a) use the EISA bus (with all the advantages and disadvantages it has)
b) skip the EISA bus and make our own ISA interface
c) have no expansion bus at all.

Ok, we already had a discussion wether we want an expansion bus
or not and we decided to go with ISA.
Assuming we have all the really necessary stuff on-board, I would
go with EISA too. It would make the design faster again and it
offers more speed.
On the other hand, not one of the ISA cards people have would
be useful.

> 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.

I have different block diagram using the ARCset chips:


+-------+               +----------+          +------+
|  Vr	| SysAD Bus     | ARCset   |    +---->| DRAM |
| 4000	|<------------->| D31431x2 |<---|     +------+
|	|               | D31432x1 |    |     +------+
+-------+               +----------+    +---->| VRAM |
                             |                +------+
                             |
        I/O Bus (i386 Bus)   |                
    +----------------------->|<--------------------------+
    |                        |                           |
    |                   +---------+                      |
    |                   |  Buffer |                      |
    |                   +---------+                      |
    |                        |                           |
+-------+   -----------------+----------------------  +------+
| EISA  |   |     |    |     |     |    |    |     |  | Ether|
|Control|   |     |    |     |     |    |    |     |  | net  |
+-------+   |     |    |     |     |    |    |     |  +------+
    |    +------+ | +------+ | +------+ | +------+ |
    |    |Mouse | | | PROM | | | NV-  | | |  RT  | |
    |    |& Kbd | | |      | | | RAM  | | |Clock | |
  EISA   +------+ | +------+ | +------+ | +------+ |
  Bus             |          |          |          |
               +------+   +------+   +------+   +------+
               |Sound |   |Floppy|   | SCSI |   |Par. &|
               | Ctrl |   | Ctrl |   | Ctrl |   |Serial|
               +------+   +------+   +------+   +------+


This blockdiagram contains really *all* of what is needed.
Don't ask me why ethernet is unbuffered, this is perhaps
just a "bug".
The block diagram shows also that the EISA bus is
an option, which probably can be replaced by an ISA bus.


Andy
 
From owner-riscy@pyramid.com  Wed Aug 11 08:32:02 1993
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From: Dan Fishman <dfishman@csn.org>
Message-Id: <199308111228.AA05797@teal.csn.org>
Subject: Re: EISA?
To: riscy@pyramid.com
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 06:28:29 -0600 (MDT)
In-Reply-To: <9308111040.AA19821@gossip.pyramid.com> from "Bill Broadley" at Aug 11, 93 06:38:31 am
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> 
> > 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
 
From owner-riscy@pyramid.com  Wed Aug 11 08:39:27 1993
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From: Dan Fishman <dfishman@csn.org>
Message-Id: <199308111236.AA06181@teal.csn.org>
Subject: Re: EISA?
To: riscy@pyramid.com
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 06:36:36 -0600 (MDT)
In-Reply-To: <9308111215.AA22768@resi.waldorf-gmbh.de> from "Andreas Busse" at Aug 11, 93 02:15:43 pm
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> 
> 
> > EISA is a pretty good bus, something like 6 times the bandwidth of ISA.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> > Isn't it completely upward compatible from ISA (i.e. we can use it just
> > like a ISA bus).
> 
> No, it's completely incompatibel, from all 3 points of view:
> - connector (different pin spacing)
> - hardware  (different signals)
> - software  (probably, don't really know)
> 

You need to tell that to my motherboard.  ISA boards run just fine in EISA
slot connectors (I know, I do it).  The pin spacing is different  in the sense
that there are double the number of pins and they are spaced vertically one above another.  I don't know all the tech details, but ISA boards simply make
contact with only their required signals and do not interfere with the added
bus signals for EISA control.

> > I certainly wouldn't object to an EISA bus on the riscy board, and if
> > the ARC chips support it it's practically free.
> 
> No, it wouldn't be free. The ARCset just has a few lines intended
> to be used to control the Intel EISA chipset.
> 
> Again, quoted from the data sheets (uPD31432, page 107):
> 
> 6.7 BUS SLAVE INTERFACES
> 
> The uPD31432 supports two types of external bus masters: 386-type bus
> masters, and an EISA expansion bus interface based on the Intel 82350
> EISA chipset.
> 
> [end of quoted material]
> 
> That means that we can
> 
> a) use the EISA bus (with all the advantages and disadvantages it has)
> b) skip the EISA bus and make our own ISA interface
> c) have no expansion bus at all.
> 
> Ok, we already had a discussion wether we want an expansion bus
> or not and we decided to go with ISA.
> Assuming we have all the really necessary stuff on-board, I would
> go with EISA too. It would make the design faster again and it
> offers more speed.
> On the other hand, not one of the ISA cards people have would
> be useful.

WRONG AGAIN.  ALL ISA boards should work just fine in an EISA bus system.
Again I'm doing just that (though obviously I have'nt used EVERY ISA board).
For example, in my EISA bus I currently have EISA AHA1742, ISA Hercules
Graphics Station video, and I had a DEC ISA Ethernet Card (I forget the 
model) and a SONY CDU535 8-bit ISA bus interface  CDROM drive.  They
all worked just fine and cooperated without a hitch.

> ....... Specific design proposal omitted
>
> Andy
> 

Dan Fishman (dfishman@csn.org) (W) (303) 469-6469 (Fax) (303) 465-4396
 
From owner-riscy@pyramid.com  Wed Aug 11 09:55:59 1993
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From: Andreas Busse <andy@resi.waldorf-gmbh.de>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 15:39:41 +0200
Message-Id: <9308111339.AA23235@resi.waldorf-gmbh.de>
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	id AA23235; Wed, 11 Aug 93 15:39:41 +0200
To: riscy@pyramid.com
Subject: Re: EISA?
Sender: owner-riscy@pyramid.com
Reply-To: riscy@pyramid.com

> > > Isn't it completely upward compatible from ISA (i.e. we can use it just
> > > like a ISA bus).
> > 
> > No, it's completely incompatibel, from all 3 points of view:
> > [...]

> You need to tell that to my motherboard.  ISA boards run just fine in EISA
> slot connectors (I know, I do it).  The pin spacing is different  in the sense
> that there are double the number of pins and they are spaced vertically one above another.  I don't know all the tech details, but ISA boards simply make
> contact with only their required signals and do not interfere with the added
> bus signals for EISA control.

> > Ok, we already had a discussion wether we want an expansion bus
> > or not and we decided to go with ISA.
> > [...]
> > On the other hand, not one of the ISA cards people have would
> > be useful.

> WRONG AGAIN.  ALL ISA boards should work just fine in an EISA bus system.
> Again I'm doing just that (though obviously I have'nt used EVERY ISA board).
> For example, in my EISA bus I currently have EISA AHA1742, ISA Hercules
> Graphics Station video, and I had a DEC ISA Ethernet Card (I forget the 
> model) and a SONY CDU535 8-bit ISA bus interface  CDROM drive.  They
> all worked just fine and cooperated without a hitch.

Oh, seems to happen to me that I'm totally mis-informed :-(
Well, if this is case (I *do* wonder), ok, here we go with the EISA bus.
There's no need for further discussion...

Andy

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