{"id":9405,"date":"2023-09-16T11:18:57","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T18:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=9405"},"modified":"2025-01-25T20:03:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T03:03:31","slug":"isa-over-usb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=9405","title":{"rendered":"ISA over USB"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Plugging in old ISA cards is something that hasn&#8217;t really been possible since 80486 days. This makes plugging in cool things like Sound Blaster, Adlib, Monster3D and other ISA cards pretty much impossible for modern computers. It also means things like <a href=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=3793\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=3793\">attaching 5.25&#8243; floppy drives<\/a> and old MFM\/RLL drives are also off the table. Well, maybe. \ud83d\ude42<br><br>There have been a few efforts to enabling plugging in ISA boards to modern pc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/FrmWqlWWYAEXVlh.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2023\/03\/23\/isa-over-tpm-to-your-pc\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2023\/03\/23\/isa-over-tpm-to-your-pc\/\">dISAppointment<\/a> that I wrote about before is a USB plugin that exposes an ISA interface. \n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Uses the LPC (low pin count) interface that still has actual legacy ISA hardware support in any PC with a TPM port on the motherboard.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2023\/03\/23\/isa-over-tpm-to-your-pc\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2023\/03\/23\/isa-over-tpm-to-your-pc\/\">Hackaday article<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?f=24&amp;t=93291\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?f=24&amp;t=93291\">VOGONS project link<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"503\" height=\"376\" data-attachment-id=\"13345\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?attachment_id=13345\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?fit=503%2C376&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"503,376\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"usb2isa-r\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?fit=503%2C376&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?resize=503%2C376&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13345\" style=\"width:417px;height:312px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?w=503&amp;ssl=1 503w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?resize=300%2C224&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2023\/09\/usb2isa-r.jpg?resize=361%2C270&amp;ssl=1 361w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 503px) 100vw, 503px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/arstech.com\/install\/ecom-prodshow\/usb2isar.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"http:\/\/arstech.com\/install\/ecom-prodshow\/usb2isar.html\">usb2ISA-R by ARS technology<\/a> &#8211; costs about $150 and also requires power as well. \n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>ARS offers a number of other USB to ISA solutions too. Their boards offer 1, 3, and 7 ISA slots on a single card connectable via USB.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?t=76234\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?t=76234\">Discussion on VOGONS about the board and it&#8217;s capabilities<\/a> &#8211; seems to indicate it does work for sound cards but audio can have bad background hum from power supply issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/10\/16\/isastm-runs-vintage-cards-over-usb\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/10\/16\/isastm-runs-vintage-cards-over-usb\/\">ISASTM<\/a> card is a little more involved setup but is able to be slotted into a ISA backplane and address multiple cards with one adapter. It seems to work with soundcards and video cards &#8211; though the USB 1.0 interface isn&#8217;t quite fast enough. A switch to USB 2 might yield enough bandwidth if <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Manawyrm\/status\/1316416401171722240\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Manawyrm\/status\/1316416401171722240\">Manawyrm <\/a>has the time.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?p=902486#p902486\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.vogons.org\/viewtopic.php?p=902486#p902486\">VOGONS discussion about the setup<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/10\/16\/isastm-runs-vintage-cards-over-usb\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/10\/16\/isastm-runs-vintage-cards-over-usb\/\">Hackaday article with more details<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5jW1dGRhmsE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plugging in old ISA cards is something that hasn&#8217;t really been possible since 80486 days. This makes plugging in cool things like Sound Blaster, Adlib, Monster3D and other ISA cards pretty much impossible for modern computers. It also means things like attaching 5.25&#8243; floppy drives and old MFM\/RLL drives are also off the table. Well, maybe. \ud83d\ude42 There have been a few efforts to enabling plugging in ISA boards to modern pc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,33,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool","category-retro-computing","category-technical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WECr-2rH","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13347,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9405\/revisions\/13347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}