are there modern motherboards with ISA slots for *AMD* processors?

[Dan Lenski]

Hi all,
I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller. The
computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
instrument. The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
computer, by the way. (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
$10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)

So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
slots? Here's what I've found so far:

* Ibase MB945 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/mb945.htmL) for Intel
Socket 775 (C2D, C2Q) and DDR3 RAM, has 1 ISA, 4 PCI, 2 PCIe slots,
ATX, costs about $390

* Ibase MB930 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB930.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but DDR2 RAM

* Ibase MB886 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB886.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but C2D only, about $340

And that's it... basically only one vendor, and only one processor
family supported. I haven't found any others that support AMD
processors at all. No Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/F. Does anyone know of any
motherboards for modern AMD processors that have ISA slots? Is there
any technical impediment to producing one... such as lack of chipset
support?

Dan

 

[Paul]

Hi all,
I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller. The
computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
instrument. The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
computer, by the way. (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
$10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)

So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
slots? Here's what I've found so far:

* Ibase MB945 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/mb945.htmL) for Intel
Socket 775 (C2D, C2Q) and DDR3 RAM, has 1 ISA, 4 PCI, 2 PCIe slots,
ATX, costs about $390

* Ibase MB930 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB930.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but DDR2 RAM

* Ibase MB886 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB886.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but C2D only, about $340

And that's it... basically only one vendor, and only one processor
family supported. I haven't found any others that support AMD
processors at all. No Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/F. Does anyone know of any
motherboards for modern AMD processors that have ISA slots? Is there
any technical impediment to producing one... such as lack of chipset
support?

Dan

Could you find a PCI to ISA adapter, leave the side off the computer,
and place the ISA card in that adapter ?

This is an example of the silicon to do it.

http://www.costronic.com/IT8888.PDF

And a teaser product that you probably don't want. (It is meant
for developers.)

http://www.costronic.com/Ev72p.htm

So you need to find something a bit more finished than that card is.

With the bridge concept, the ISA card is likely to protrude out
of the computer. If the bridging card supports a right angle
configuration, there may be room for your scientific card to
fit within the confines of the PC case, but then there may be
a number of other extension slots that get blocked.

Paul

 

[Fishface]

I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller.
The computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

What speed is the PIII processor? Slot 1 or Socket 370? Tualation
adapter and 1.4 GHz CPU still too slow?

We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
instrument. The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
computer, by the way. (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
$10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)

So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
slots? Here's what I've found so far:

* Ibase MB945 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/mb945.htmL) for Intel
Socket 775 (C2D, C2Q) and DDR3 RAM, has 1 ISA, 4 PCI, 2 PCIe slots,
ATX, costs about $390

* Ibase MB930 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB930.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but DDR2 RAM

* Ibase MB886 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB886.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but C2D only, about $340

Sounds like that is too much, also? Seems reasonable to me for a
specialty board. Economy of scale sort of thing.

And that's it... basically only one vendor, and only one processor
family supported. I haven't found any others that support AMD
processors at all. No Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/F. Does anyone
know of any motherboards for modern AMD processors that have
ISA slots? Is there any technical impediment to producing one...
such as lack of chipset support?

Why exactly did you prefer AMD?

 

[daytripper]

Hi all,
I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller. The
computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
instrument. The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
computer, by the way. (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
$10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)

So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
slots? Here's what I've found so far:

* Ibase MB945 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/mb945.htmL) for Intel
Socket 775 (C2D, C2Q) and DDR3 RAM, has 1 ISA, 4 PCI, 2 PCIe slots,
ATX, costs about $390

* Ibase MB930 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB930.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but DDR2 RAM

* Ibase MB886 (http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/MB886.html) for Intel
Socket 775, similar but C2D only, about $340

And that's it... basically only one vendor, and only one processor
family supported. I haven't found any others that support AMD
processors at all. No Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/F. Does anyone know of any
motherboards for modern AMD processors that have ISA slots? Is there
any technical impediment to producing one... such as lack of chipset
support?

ISA is more dead than...Franco. So yes, chipset support is pretty much over
and out. I'm surprised you actually found *anyone* selling otherwise
reasonably current motherboards sporting an ISA slot.

I say you should cross yourself at least three times and thank whatever deity
you believe in that Ibase is going to save you a shitload of cash, and just
buy one of their C2D DDR2 boards and call it a day...

 

[Dan Lenski]

Could you find a PCI to ISA adapter, leave the side off the computer,
and place the ISA card in that adapter ?

This is an example of the silicon to do it.

http://www.costronic.com/IT8888.PDF

And a teaser product that you probably don't want. (It is meant
for developers.)

http://www.costronic.com/Ev72p.htm

So you need to find something a bit more finished than that card is.

Now that is just cool! I had no idea that such a thing existed, or
was even contemplated for production. Wow! Very neat.

With the bridge concept, the ISA card is likely to protrude out
of the computer. If the bridging card supports a right angle
configuration, there may be room for your scientific card to
fit within the confines of the PC case, but then there may be
a number of other extension slots that get blocked.

Yeah, it probably wouldn't work great for this application,
unfortunately. But it's good to know someone is looking at backwards-
compatibility with ISA.

Dan

 

[Dan Lenski]

What speed is the PIII processor?  Slot 1 or Socket 370?  Tualation
adapter and 1.4 GHz CPU still too slow?

I'll have to double-check which socket it uses. What is the Tualation
adapter?

Sounds like that is too much, also?  Seems reasonable to me for a
specialty board.  Economy of scale sort of thing.

Oh yeah, I think the iBase prices are perfectly reasonable, only
$200-250 more than what you'd get a similar mobo for without the ISA
slot. I was quite shocked to find that there's *anything* available
with an ISA slot still, besides maybe some old stock and some
industrial PCs.

Why exactly did you prefer AMD?

Well, I personally prefer AMD products, and I was thinking that if I
found an AMD board I could probably get a processor for somewhat less,
but otherwise I was mostly just hoping to find better availability of
ISA products, in case the ones I've found turned out to be problematic
or incompatible.

Dan

 

[Dan Lenski]

ISA is more dead than...Franco. So yes, chipset support is pretty much over
and out. I'm surprised you actually found *anyone* selling otherwise
reasonably current motherboards sporting an ISA slot.

Hehe, well I expect many of the other users are, like me, supporting
5-6 figure scientific instruments that can't be upgraded without
extortionate fees paid to the manufacturers.

Also, I think ISA lives on, basically unchanged at the logical level,
in the form of Low-pin Count bus used for other low-speed and "legacy"
devices like FDD, serial port, parallel port, BIOS ROM, PS/2 mouse and
keyboard, and thermal/fan sensors. So I would think that many
southbridges have the pins that could be attached to some kind of ISA
bus, if only there was a connector there!

I say you should cross yourself at least three times and thank whatever deity
you believe in that Ibase is going to save you a shitload of cash, and just
buy one of their C2D DDR2 boards and call it a day...

Well, this is probably what we're gonna do

Dan

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> daytripper

I say you should cross yourself at least three times and thank whatever deity
you believe in that Ibase is going to save you a shitload of cash, and just
buy one of their C2D DDR2 boards and call it a day...

I'd probably buy three or four, since such beasts won't be available for
too much longer.

 

[daytripper]

Hehe, well I expect many of the other users are, like me, supporting
5-6 figure scientific instruments that can't be upgraded without
extortionate fees paid to the manufacturers.

Also, I think ISA lives on, basically unchanged at the logical level,
in the form of Low-pin Count bus used for other low-speed and "legacy"
devices like FDD, serial port, parallel port, BIOS ROM, PS/2 mouse and
keyboard, and thermal/fan sensors. So I would think that many
southbridges have the pins that could be attached to some kind of ISA
bus, if only there was a connector there!

Very unlikely. I design server motherboards and have used a fairly wide
variety of chipsets in the couple of decades since ISA was in the throes of
death, and none of them could be strapped to drive an ISA bus. Package pins
have become a significant design factor, and given there's really no market
for ISA boards - with the notable exception of folks that are keeping pricey
custom interface cards alive ;-) - there's really nothing driving the chipset
manufacturers to stuff an ISA block in their products, especially at the cost
of a larger package.

Well, this is probably what we're gonna do

Good call.

Cheers

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Dan Lenski:

I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller. The
computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

Have you considered just upgrading it? Parts for a P3 should be
obtainable for almost free today. Or get a better P3 computer.

We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
instrument. The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
computer, by the way. (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
$10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)

So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
slots?

Yes. Kontron (www.kontron.com) does make several ISA-based solutions.
However, they are not cheap.

Sadly you didn't provide more details as to what card you want to use.
Maybe it is cheaper (and in the longer term more cost effecive) to just
replace the ISA card and use a standard mainboard without ISA.

Benjamin

 

[Dan Lenski]

* Dan Lenski:
 > I'm in charge of a piece of scientific equipment that uses an old
 > Pentium III computer (running Windows 2000) as its controller.  The
 > computer is, needless to say, slow and annoying to use.

Have you considered just upgrading it? Parts for a P3 should be
obtainable for almost free today. Or get a better P3 computer.

Yeah, I mean it's not THAT expensive to do a full upgrade. We can go
from P3 clunker to screaming Core 2 Quad beast with 4gb of DDR3 RAM
and dual NICs and 500gb hard drive in about $750. Also, did I mention
the horrifically noisy PSU and ugly case which we'd be replacing as
well?

 > We'd like to upgrade to a newer computer, but here's the catch: it
 > needs to have 3 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot (yech) to interface with the
 > instrument.  The equipment manufacturer is okay with us replacing the
 > computer, by the way.  (Replacing the ISA interface card would cost
 > $10,000, so that's pretty much out of the question for us.)
 >
 > So does anyone know where I can get a modern motherboard with ISA
 > slots?

Yes. Kontron (www.kontron.com) does make several ISA-based solutions.
However, they are not cheap.

Sadly you didn't provide more details as to what card you want to use.
Maybe it is cheaper (and in the longer term more cost effecive) to just
replace the ISA card and use a standard mainboard without ISA.

It's one of these awful custom cards, seemingly unique to the
instrument manufacturer. It is basically a glorified GPIO port, as
far as I can tell... but it's *their* glorified GPIO port, and no one
else knows exactly how it works. They want $10,000 to replace the ISA
card with a newer PCI version. Yes, $10,000. Scientific equipment
manufacturers are ridiculous, especially when they choose to use
custom cards. Thankfully, that's becoming less prevalent as standard
serial/USB/Firewire interfaces are increasingly provided. Either that
or GPIB... which is basically a glorified serial port with an
extremely bulky cable, costing "only" hundreds of dollars for the
interface card.

</rant>

Here's another oddball product: ISA to USB. http://www.arstech.com/item--usb2isa.html
Any guesses about possible compatibility pitfalls with such a beast?
Thanks for the advice so far!

Dan

 

[Paul]

Yeah, I mean it's not THAT expensive to do a full upgrade. We can go
from P3 clunker to screaming Core 2 Quad beast with 4gb of DDR3 RAM
and dual NICs and 500gb hard drive in about $750. Also, did I mention
the horrifically noisy PSU and ugly case which we'd be replacing as
well?


It's one of these awful custom cards, seemingly unique to the
instrument manufacturer. It is basically a glorified GPIO port, as
far as I can tell... but it's *their* glorified GPIO port, and no one
else knows exactly how it works. They want $10,000 to replace the ISA
card with a newer PCI version. Yes, $10,000. Scientific equipment
manufacturers are ridiculous, especially when they choose to use
custom cards. Thankfully, that's becoming less prevalent as standard
serial/USB/Firewire interfaces are increasingly provided. Either that
or GPIB... which is basically a glorified serial port with an
extremely bulky cable, costing "only" hundreds of dollars for the
interface card.

</rant>

Here's another oddball product: ISA to USB. http://www.arstech.com/item--usb2isa.html
Any guesses about possible compatibility pitfalls with such a beast?
Thanks for the advice so far!

Dan

According to this, the ISA bus can run at 6MHz or 8MHz, and
at 16 bits wide, that would make the maximum transfer rate about
16MB/sec. USB2 can manage about 30MB/sec transfer rate to a
hard drive, so it sounds like for large block transfers, there
is enough bandwidth. If you needed to "peek" and "poke"
individual registers on your ISA card, that might be slower
with the USB concept, because each peek or poke could take
separate USB packets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/ISA_Bus_pins.png

I notice arstech also mentions powering, and I notice in the pinout
for the ISA connector, there is a pin available for -5V. On modern ATX
power supplies, -5V has been removed, and you'd find one pin on
the ATX connector that is not being used. That would be where the
-5V used to be. Now, there isn't a strong reason to be using
that rail. It might be convenient for something like wiring up ECL
chips. Or perhaps some of the really old DRAM technologies. So that might
be an item to check as well.

Considering your scientific card costs $10000, you might want to
start your project, by using a throwaway ISA card for testing, and get
that running with any adapter first. For example, I have an old Soundblaster
of some kind, in my first computer, and I think that might be the
only ISA card I've got. If I could get that working, then I'd
switch over to the real card and give it a try.

Obviously, if the bridge is from USB to ISA, the environment it is
used in, is going to have to understand USB. I don't know what
shape official USB support is in for Win98 or ME.

"Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008"

One other thing to consider, is the software on the old machine.
Can the software that drives the ISA device, operate on a more
modern operating system ? Can the new computer operate with an
older OS ? You have a lot of mixing and matching to do.

This is my current motherboard. I run a Core2 dual core processor
in it (E4700). I've actually installed Win98SE on this motherboard,
using an IDE hard drive. I used a five year old video card that has
Win98 drivers. The video card was AGP type, and this board has
an AGP slot. You'll find more modern boards, where the
Device Manager would have things in it that might not be
recognized. When Win98SE runs on my computer, only one core of
the processor works (since Win98 doesn't support multiple cores),
but I still found the box to have snappy performance. The install
was more of a joke than anything, but I was surprised how easy it
was to do. (I had to stop the install half way through, to make
a tweak to prevent the 512MB memory limit from getting in the way.)
A lot of other motherboards, would not have allowed this to work.
About the fastest processor that runs in this board now, is an
E7500 (the charts don't mention support for E7600, but logically
it should work as well). This board does not support FSB1333 processors,
so an E8600 would be out of the question.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157115

I suspect you have a lot of mixing and matching to do in any case,
so there are bound to be some less than ideal choices you have to
make, to get it all to work.

Paul

 

[david]

It's one of these awful custom cards, seemingly unique to the instrument
manufacturer. It is basically a glorified GPIO port, as far as I can
tell... but it's *their* glorified GPIO port, and no one else knows
exactly how it works. They want $10,000 to replace the ISA card with a
newer PCI version. Yes, $10,000. Scientific equipment manufacturers
are ridiculous, especially when they choose to use custom cards.
Thankfully, that's becoming less prevalent as standard
serial/USB/Firewire interfaces are increasingly provided. Either that
or GPIB... which is basically a glorified serial port with an extremely
bulky cable, costing "only" hundreds of dollars for the interface card.

</rant>

Actually, GPIB is parallel, not serial.

 

[david]

Obviously, if the bridge is from USB to ISA, the environment it is used
in, is going to have to understand USB. I don't know what shape official
USB support is in for Win98 or ME.

If the OPs' instrument software works by writing directly to a memory or
I/O mapped location then the USB to ISA converter is likely not going to
work.

 

[Paul]

If the OPs' instrument software works by writing directly to a memory or
I/O mapped location then the USB to ISA converter is likely not going to
work.

Maybe you could redirect all the I/O instructions to a non-existent
address, such that they all bus fault ? And then install your own
bus fault handler ?

How ever their scheme works, I have to give them points for being
ambitious.

Paul

 

[daytripper]

I notice arstech also mentions powering, and I notice in the pinout
for the ISA connector, there is a pin available for -5V. On modern ATX
power supplies, -5V has been removed, and you'd find one pin on
the ATX connector that is not being used. That would be where the
-5V used to be. Now, there isn't a strong reason to be using
that rail. It might be convenient for something like wiring up ECL
chips. Or perhaps some of the really old DRAM technologies. So that might
be an item to check as well.

[...]

Back in the day, the -5V was often used in UARTs. If the OP's custom card is
*that* old and relies on serial communication devices that are not single,
positive input voltage, that could be a problem requiring resolution...

 

[Dan Lenski]

Actually, GPIB is parallel, not serial.

Right, but it basically functions as a glorified serial port: you send
a stream of bits/bytes down it to your instrument... the instrument
sends a stream back. About the only interesting features is daisy-
chaining of devices, which is sometimes handy but requires very bulky
and expensive cables.

I wish we just used RS-232 interfaces for all of our instruments
instead of GPIB!

Dan

 

[Fishface]

Dan Lenski wrote:

I'll have to double-check which socket it uses. What is the Tualation
adapter?

This explains it well: http://www.cwc-group.com/fctuadforso3.html
Search for Tualatin adapter on eBay. They come and go.

Here's a slot-1 adapter and CPU on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350242649349

There is also an Upgradeware Slot-T product for Slot-1

Oh yeah, I think the iBase prices are perfectly reasonable, only
$200-250 more than what you'd get a similar mobo for without the
ISA slot.

Are you being sarcastic? I can't really tell from here.

 

[Dan Lenski]

This explains it well: http://www.cwc-group.com/fctuadforso3.html Search
for Tualatin adapter on eBay. They come and go.

Gotcha, thanks! Yeah, I think we want more of a performance upgrade than
this could provide.

Are you being sarcastic? I can't really tell from here.

Sorry! I was not being sarcastic. I do think it's a reasonable premium
to pay for what is undoubtedly a niche product. They seem to have no
competition and could probably charge $1,000 and have it still be cost-
effective for customers like me.

We ended up ordering an iBase board from NeutronUSA and the rest of the
parts from NewEgg. Thanks all!

Dan

 

[NT]

According to this, the ISA bus can run at 6MHz or 8MHz, and
at 16 bits wide, that would make the maximum transfer rate about
16MB/sec. USB2 can manage about 30MB/sec transfer rate to a
hard drive, so it sounds like for large block transfers, there
is enough bandwidth. If you needed to "peek" and "poke"
individual registers on your ISA card, that might be slower
with the USB concept, because each peek or poke could take
separate USB packets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/ISA_Bus_pins.png

I notice arstech also mentions powering, and I notice in the pinout
for the ISA connector, there is a pin available for -5V. On modern ATX
power supplies, -5V has been removed, and you'd find one pin on
the ATX connector that is not being used. That would be where the
-5V used to be. Now, there isn't a strong reason to be using
that rail. It might be convenient for something like wiring up ECL
chips. Or perhaps some of the really old DRAM technologies. So that might
be an item to check as well.

Considering your scientific card costs $10000, you might want to
start your project, by using a throwaway ISA card for testing, and get
that running with any adapter first. For example, I have an old Soundblaster
of some kind, in my first computer, and I think that might be the
only ISA card I've got. If I could get that working, then I'd
switch over to the real card and give it a try.

Obviously, if the bridge is from USB to ISA, the environment it is
used in, is going to have to understand USB. I don't know what
shape official USB support is in for Win98 or ME.

    "Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008"

One other thing to consider, is the software on the old machine.
Can the software that drives the ISA device, operate on a more
modern operating system ? Can the new computer operate with an
older OS ? You have a lot of mixing and matching to do.

This is my current motherboard. I run a Core2 dual core processor
in it (E4700). I've actually installed Win98SE on this motherboard,
using an IDE hard drive. I used a five year old video card that has
Win98 drivers. The video card was AGP type, and this board has
an AGP slot. You'll find more modern boards, where the
Device Manager would have things in it that might not be
recognized. When Win98SE runs on my computer, only one core of
the processor works (since Win98 doesn't support multiple cores),
but I still found the box to have snappy performance. The install
was more of a joke than anything, but I was surprised how easy it
was to do. (I had to stop the install half way through, to make
a tweak to prevent the 512MB memory limit from getting in the way.)
A lot of other motherboards, would not have allowed this to work.
About the fastest processor that runs in this board now, is an
E7500 (the charts don't mention support for E7600, but logically
it should work as well). This board does not support FSB1333 processors,
so an E8600 would be out of the question.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157115

I suspect you have a lot of mixing and matching to do in any case,
so there are bound to be some less than ideal choices you have to
make, to get it all to work.

    Paul

fwiw win98 supports usb perfectly with 3rd party nusb3.3 drivers

More directly, I'm wondering whether the slowness may be due to
something other than hardware. IME it nearly always is.


NT