Nubus USB?

Those USB to ethernet adapters are one-way. As for as USB on nubus, I don't know if that is possible.

Ok, would this get us any closer to USB on a Nubus Mac? I noticed USB to RJ-45 adapters in several PC shops. Is it possible to use an ethernet card, one of these, and a usb mouse to a nubus Mac? I have no idea how it would be addressed.

Tom

Sigh.

Just read the USB spec. It's not peer-to-peer, it's controller/master hub to peripheral. If you understand that, you'll understand why *any* ideas along these lines won't work.

--Peace

Is there a nubus PPC :?
Unless my memory fails me i think all nubus is '0x0 that can only run up to 8.1

Have fun
mak :mac:

uh yea...there are ppc nubus machine...
i know for sure the 6100 i have is one of them...

yes, sorry i was wrong

What we need is someone who is willing to go trough the trouble of making a PDS to USB Card And while at it also ads a decent videocard and some Fire Wire. Oh and maybe a Serial Ata bus .It must be possible.
Any candidates. I would buy one

and some of you may not be surprised to see me post at that last remark...

I have already pulled down the pinouts for the NuBus slots, the PDS on my Quadra 950, and PCI. It is not a straight forward pin-for-pin match and may prove undoable given concerns over bus speed, but as I find time, I will be seeing what limits I can push with NuBus and my Q.

Any promising results will find there way into my blog.

--DDTM

I have already pulled down the pinouts for the NuBus slots, the PDS on my Quadra 950, and PCI. It is not a straight forward pin-for-pin match and may prove undoable given concerns over bus speed, but as I find time, I will be seeing what limits I can push with NuBus and my Q.

You do understand that you can't just tie pins together on those different busses, even if their "function" is the same, right? Right?

A bus is a lot more then wires. It's protocol, signals, levels, initialization procedures... etc. Tying a PCI card into a NuBus slot with ribbon cable will accomplish precisely "dick".

--Peace

If You start out with a PCI to PDS converter ....
We have PCI UsB Cards
We have PCI video cards
We have PCI (S)Ata cards
We have pci Fire wire Cards
And sonnet has even put USB FireWire and Ata on one Card...

I'm not saying this is easy, but it should be possible.
Just brainstorming .
What the actual performance woul be, I don't know....

I once saw a PC wich had a "USB" port next to the AT keyboard connector.
Turned out it only worked for Keyboards and Mice.
So it was a kind of fake USB port. (We found that out when we tried to connect a modem to it...)

USB is related to serial if i'm not mistaking, so if You only need a mous port maybe a serial to USB converter is possible?

There is no way one will get a PCI to nubus adapter. One would need a complex micro-processor adapter, to let the 2 incompatible formats function.

I doupt it would be cheap either...these things would need to process huge amounts of data, super fast...

Also, bus speed on NUBUS machins is terrible....so PCI cards would suck.

A nubus to PCI converter is not going to happen anytime in the near future.

Don't waste your time even trying unless you have a tonne of programming knowledge, cash and experience working with interfearence senstive electronics. Even if you worked out a circuit diagram, program, driver etc, actually putting the thing together from the parts would be amazingly hard without PCB fabricaton.

{rant#1)
This is a frequent question here and everywhere else, and it gets me crazy! Y'all have been instructed on why as a practical matter it'll never be done!! Nobody's gonna get USB running on any nubus-based machine, so just move on to something doable!

K?!?!?!!!
{/rant#1)

{rant#2)
and DDTM, you know, you are a terrible tease! You're a very knowledgable bloke who gives unreasonable hope to the unenlightened masses with your feckless speculation. I know you have considerable expertise in electronics, but come on, as Eudi and martakz point out, a nubus-to-PCI bridge is a major engineering project. Not something one can just stick together over the weekend with some leftover bits of string and bailing wire.
{/rant#2)

Sigh . . . damn, we need a FAQ on this friggin topic!

dan k

Eudi and markatz are right, as are you. My only point in the matter was that I had looked at the pinouts and did suspect the issues pointed out above. Possible? Yes. Easily? Simple? Cheap? Practical? Efficient? ... Not by a long shot.

But aren't all of those the best qualities of a good hack?

And I know it is not quick either, I spent two years working on my iMac mezz adapter hack before mothballing that one (see my blog for the end result). I do hope I don't give false hope to others. I apologize if I had.

I love challanges and hopeless causes, but I guess I have clearly established a reputation for such.

--DDTM

To get USB on a NuBus Mac is a **very** simple operation.

Step 1. Clear off the top of your NuBus based Mac, and if it's a tower, tip it over.

Step 2. Place an iMac on top of said Mac. There you have it- USB on a NuBus Mac.

I haven't tested this yet, but I'm sure it will work 100% of the time!

::)

...but put this in your pipe and smoke it!!!

Someone has indeed built a PCI to NuBus adapter.
http://www.2ndwave.com/details.asp?ProductID=56&mscssid=KAQBX0TA1M8F8LQJ5RBDNL9LCKCL8200

The only real question is about building it the otherway around, going NuBus to PCI.

--DDTM

What will most likely happen is what happened to a Tandy 1000 EX serial card that I tried to make an adaptor for to connect it to a standard ISA slot.

Kill the board! Kill the board!

...but put this in your pipe and smoke it!!!

Someone has indeed built a PCI to NuBus adapter.
http://www.2ndwave.com/details.asp?ProductID=56&mscssid=KAQBX0TA1M8F8LQJ5RBDNL9LCKCL8200

The only real question is about building it the otherway around, going NuBus to PCI.

I'm not sure what your point is, really. A $1700 card covered with LSI components (basically a complete NuBus chipset) is a far cry from something you're likely to paste together by looking at pinout diagrams and scratching your head.

Interestingly enough, Apple actually talks about this sort of thing.

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/pci_srvcs/pci_cards_drivers/PCI_BOOK.17a.html

You might want to read the rest of that document, actually. It will give you some idea of the scale of a project to shoehorn PCI into a Macintosh not designed for it. Hardware would only be the first tiny step. Plan on writing a complete PCI Card Services replacement in 68K code to go with your ribbon-cabled PCI bridge?

Seriously. If you *insist* on saying it's possible, go prove it. Here's a great starting point:

http://www.tundra.com/Products/PowerPC/QSpanII/index.cfm

It's a PCI bridge bus compatable with Motorola 68040 and Coldfire processors. Design a PDS card using it to fit your Quadra 950, write the drivers and OS support, and gloat when you're finished. That'll be a few years from now, of course, but... everyone needs a hobby.

--Peace

...but thanks for the 'heads up' on the the QSpan II. It is better than the other chip I was looking at. I will be calling and requesting my RDK late today or sometime tomorrow.

I will start a blog once it arrives.

Thanksabunch!
--DDTM