Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco

[Doc Shipley]

Ethan Dicks wrote:
> On 10/18/07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>>And how many PCs have a 'user port'? That's one thing I would certainly
>>want to hack in somehow.
> 
> 
> That's one of my largest complaints with "modern" laptops - no
> traditional ("legacy") parallel port.  I have, in the past year,
> attached LCD displays, a ladder D-A, MCUs for programming, and a real
> Dragon's Lair/Space Ace scoreboard to a PeeCee parallel port.  It's
> not quite as versatile as the User Port on a PET or a C-64, but I'm
> still missing my old (i.e., bought in 2005!) laptop.
> 
> I _do_ have some "user port"-ish hardware for ISA, though -
> essentially one to three 8255s on either a 2/3-length or full-length
> card.  A couple of them are just meant to hang external cables out the
> back to access the I/O, and another couple are also bread-board cards,
> with either grids of 0.1"-spacing holes, or real nylon-block
> prototyping strips, with a pre-done circuit area for instruction
> decode, latch, off-board DC-37 connector, etc.
> 
> I have nothing like it newer than for ISA, unfortunately.

   So, here's a thought.  As mentioned by somebody else, even 32-bit PCI 
slots are getting thin on the ground in new hardware.  The various 
"hook-my-old-gear-up-to-my-new-PC" projects seem, for better or worse, 
to be centering on USB.

   I don't know crap about USB or about ISA, but would it be feasible to 
just build a USB-attached ISA expansion board?  Would that simpler than 
attaching existing serial cards, floppy interfaces, etc., or would it 
just further complicate things?


	Doc