ISA - PCI Conversion

[pgerotica]

Hi. Anybody did that? Convert a ISA Hardware to PCI? I am trying to
convert a board i did a few years ago, and uses boot rom. Im using PLX
PCI-9030 ic. Does anybody know where i can find application notes for
this?
Thanks in advance
Pedro.

 

[paulmd]

Hi. Anybody did that? Convert a ISA Hardware to PCI? I am trying to
convert a board i did a few years ago, and uses boot rom. Im using PLX
PCI-9030 ic. Does anybody know where i can find application notes for
this?
Thanks in advance
Pedro.

http://www.iss-us.com/pci/pci_isa_001/index.htm

http://www.costronic.com/Ev71p.htm

Google is a wonderful place.

 

[pgerotica]

Thanks.
Yeah i know google is a wonderful place. I think my question isnt
good...
Im asking if anybody did that with PCI9030 ic.
Sorry for that

 

[paulmd]

PLX was offering rapid prototyping kits, for both PCI and ISA based on
that chip. (circa 2000)

I presume somebody bought them. To do what you are doing. Which is your
literal question: has anybody done this, to which the answer is yes,
probably. The more important question: how do I do this, is a much
harder one.

What I see now is end of product lifecycle notes for that chip.

I think the best way to get to where you are going is the chip i linked
to earlier (the first one).

 

[pgerotica]

I bought the prototyping kit, PCI9030-RDK. This chip is new, replacing
old PCI9050.
I have the prototyping here. PLX doesnt give ANY support for me, maybe
because i am not a big chinese manufacturer or something.....
Ok, my first hard question is.... I think it´s easier to develop this
board as being a Legacy PCI, because my old design is ISA based, nature
born Legacy. Can i hardwire the expansion rom address (to the bridge
IC), for example 0xc0000? I think these questions are more IC specific,
that makes this topic anoyng...
I think what would really help are some schematics to base on.
Tks

 

[paulmd]

I bought the prototyping kit, PCI9030-RDK. This chip is new, replacing
old PCI9050.
I have the prototyping here. PLX doesnt give ANY support for me, maybe
because i am not a big chinese manufacturer or something.....
Ok, my first hard question is.... I think it´s easier to develop this
board as being a Legacy PCI, because my old design is ISA based, nature
born Legacy. Can i hardwire the expansion rom address (to the bridge
IC), for example 0xc0000? I think these questions are more IC specific,
that makes this topic anoyng...
I think what would really help are some schematics to base on.
Tks

Don't tell me you don't have the schematic! It makes life ever so much
easier....

Well, it looks like to get to where you want to be you have to register
with them. It's unclear if you have to pay them for the access to their
stuff. The registration page suggests not. As they don't ask for a card
number.

http://www.plxtech.com/products/io_accelerators/PCI9030/default.htm

I did find a schematic of soneone else's project that at least labels
the pins of the pci9030. Not much to go on.

http://www-ese.fnal.gov/eseproj/BTeV/TestBeam02/PtaRev1c.pdf

 

[pgerotica]

I do have schematics, but nothing about ISA-PCI.... Apparently you can
do a lot of things with this IC, from PCI - A Lot of things , but ISA
isnt documented... there are a few references about this in the
documentation.
It´s sad when you buy their products, and you try to get some (very
little) help from them, and nothing.... not even an automatic reply
email.... well, life is like this...
Thanks lot for the help...

 

[paulmd]

I do have schematics, but nothing about ISA-PCI.... Apparently you can
do a lot of things with this IC, from PCI - A Lot of things , but ISA
isnt documented... there are a few references about this in the
documentation.
It´s sad when you buy their products, and you try to get some (very
little) help from them, and nothing.... not even an automatic reply
email.... well, life is like this...
Thanks lot for the help...

I think I know why there is very little on ISA, is that ISA has been
dying out for a long time. You may have to redesign your card as a PCI,
and scrap a lot of the old circuitry, you may find that the new chip
makes a lot of it redunant.

And there still is the chip that you basicly connect your ISA outputs
on one end and the PCI outputs on the other, and not much else. (well
you still have to write a driver)

 

[pgerotica]

Yeah, i think you´re right. I have to redisign it... I forgot to say,
my board loads the OS, dos goes with it, in an eprom... so no device
drivers required.... I´ll have to rewrite the boot loader though....