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From: Dan Lenski on 24 Aug 2009 17:02
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
From: Paul on 24 Aug 2009 18:14
Dan Lenski wrote:
> 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
From: Fishface on 24 Aug 2009 21:09
Dan Lenski wrote:

> 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?


From: daytripper on 24 Aug 2009 21:24
On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:02:22 -0700 (PDT), Dan Lenski <dlenski(a)gmail.com>
wrote:

>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...
From: Dan Lenski on 25 Aug 2009 00:07
On Aug 24, 6:14 pm, Paul <nos...(a)needed.com> wrote:
> 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
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