• Re: USB to ISA device

    From kirkspragg@21:2/150 to AKAcastor on Friday, May 03, 2024 13:54:24
    Speaking of weird USB stuff - I have a USB to ISA interface from ARS Technologies, it's an interesting device but definitely not plug n play.http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isax3.html

    Thanks for sharing thats really interesting, what ISA cards have you got working this way & how did you use them?

    ery curious to know how this device works in practice.

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  • From AKAcastor@21:1/162 to Kirkspragg on Friday, May 03, 2024 15:30:52
    Speaking of weird USB stuff - I have a USB to ISA interface from ARS Technologies, it's an interesting device but definitely not plug n play.http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isax3.html

    Thanks for sharing thats really interesting, what ISA
    cards have you got working this way & how did you use them?

    I haven't actually done very much with the USB2ISA, it turns out it isn't exactly a simple plug and play solution to add an ISA bus to a modern computer. :) I poked at a modem a bit with it, but I haven't really USED it for anything so far.

    What it does is it provides a USB interface to access ISA cards - the catch is that nothing else knows how to interface with an ISA card over the USB interface, so you have two choices: a) write your own software that will interface with the ISA card, or b) run a special version of DOSBox that supports USB2ISA, then DOS programs can access the ISA cards.

    There's a short thread on vogons.org about it here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=61863

    A few years ago, Foone posted a twitter thread with their experiments: https://twitter.com/foone/status/1228127962320404480

    When looking this up, I also came across someone else's similar project for an ISA-over-USB adapter that they called ISASTM:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/jbaw38/isaoverusb_using_real_isa_cards_in_an_emulator/


    Chris/akacastor

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