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 Post subject: ISA bus clock speeds?
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 5:59 am 
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Hi there,

I want to build an interface to be able to use 8bit ISA bus cards with a 6502.
My bus currently runs at 1MHz - but the ISA bus runs at 4.77MHz (right)?
On the other hand I know that some ISA cards are dead simple and could potentially run on various speeds (e.g. 16540 UART cards)

meh... first google link points to here of course viewtopic.php?t=89 ;-)
and the second to the one I knew was already working in this direction, Ruud .... http://www.baltissen.org/newhtm/isaexpand.htm

So I'll have to read those first. And, so it seems, clock speed does not seem to really matter on the ISA bus.

What is your take on 8bit vs. 16bit ISA bus? I only have Euroboards, does the 16bit interface fit on the long edge (with ~3+cm left for another connector hopefully?)

I guess some more research is needed...

Thanks for any comment.
André

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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 11:15 am 
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Hello André,

The initial IBM PC used a single 14.31818 MHz oscillator which was divided by 3 to yield the 4.77 MHz system clock (33.3% duty-cycle), and that divided by 2 to yield a 2.38 MHz signal, which was run through a FF to divide by 2 again to create the timer clock of 1.19 MHz. The 14.31818 MHz clock was used by the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), which was divided by 4 to provide the color burst signal required for NTSC composite color output. There are two separate signals on the bus connector: Connector pin B30 was marked OSC, which is the 14.31818 MHz and B20 was marked CLK, which is the 4.77 MHz.

When we brought out the PC-AT, things changed slightly. The 14.31818 MHz clock signal was kept, for compatibility with the CGA adapter (and timer clock), but a separate clock generator was added to drive the 80286 CPU, which ran at 6 MHz. As a result, the Tech Ref for the AT noted that the Clock signal was now 6 MHz and was not synchronous with the OSC (14.31818 MHz) signal. Some time after the initial AT announcement, I managed to obtain a couple SkyRocket boards, which were AT based system boards with additional memory and some faster chips... I also obtained a couple early 12.5 MHz 80286 CPUs and was running the system (and the bus Clock signal) at 12.5 MHz.

Needless to say, one can overclock the old ISA bus, provided you have some faster chips. Running it slower shouldn't be a problem, but you would likely have some issues using an old memory expansion board as these were based on DRAMs and the refresh rates would be reduced accordingly and likely fail. However, I doubt you would be looking to run one of the old memory adapters.

You can find out more by downloading the technical reference manuals at the link below. Note that with the early PC releases, we published full schematics and the BIOS listing in these references. As far as connector spacing goes, the integrated 2-piece connector (8/16-bit I/O connector grouping) is 5.50-inches end-to-end of the connector housing.

Manual PDFs can be found here:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/pc/

Hope this helps.

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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 2:24 pm 
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Thanks!

In the meantime I found that ISA bus slots seem to be even more unobtainable than Apple II slots, so I'll have to see if my idea still realizes....

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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 3:50 pm 
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The original connectors were made by AMP, but TE is now the parent company.... pretty sure they make 60-pin and 64-pin, but not the 62-pin.

EDAC is another company that make them... I think it's the 392 series, but who knows if there's any stock around.

https://edac.net/series/392

Then again, if you just want to do the 16-bit bus version, here's some surplus connectors at a really good price:

https://www.peconnectors.com/edgecards- ... /hws15454/

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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 6:05 pm 
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Thanks.

The peconnectors.com link looks nice ... but they only ship to US or CA....
In Germany I only find de-soldered connectors on the bay for about 10x the price...

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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2022 8:06 pm 
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Sent you a PM

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