From tthorn@daimi.aau.dk  Ukn Jun 29 09:43:01 1993
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:36:59 +0200
From: Tommy Thorn <tthorn@daimi.aau.dk>
Message-Id: <199306291336.AA21662@avignon.daimi.aau.dk>
To: riscy@pyramid.com
Subject: ISA or not [Was: My thoughts on the MB design...]
References: <01GZYKX2D60AFUMLVJ@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Reply-To: Tommy.Thorn@daimi.aau.dk
Status: RO
X-Status: 

Pat Mackinlay writes:

 > >I'd also like to recommend that we move the low-bandwidth I/O
 > >off the system board (keeping it on a 10Mhz bus of the 3070
 > >or whatever) to these slots, since 
 > 
 > It seems the most strident opposition to this is actually coming from Neil. 

How do you arrive at this conclusion? For several of the posters, including
myself, ISA is a must. Without ISA, the cost of going MIPS now has
to include the price for new boards like IDE, parallel, sound, ISDN..

 > It looks to me like Steve, Drew and myself are all for the "proprietry" 
 > slow I/O bus rather than attempting to do an ISA bus. Basically, the only 
 > device that really _has_ to have high bandwidth is the video system, so 
 > that _must_ end up on the motherboard. All other devices, including SCSI 
 > and Ethernet, would do very well on a little custom I/O bus. Sure, we have 
 > to make cards for it, but I don't think there'll be a huge price difference 
 > between doing this and buying the equivalent "off the shelf".

Well, what if some planned *not* to by it "off the shelf", but had the
parts already.

What I really hope to see is an ISA capable motherboard with video,
and if nessesary, optional SCSI and Ethernet onboard.

I accept of course that my view may carry little weight, as I'm
more a software kind of guy.

 
