DOS Games Discussion

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:12 am**

Does anyone have a computer with EISA slots? If yes, do you have any EISA cards?

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 10:46 am**

EISA? I've ne'er heard of EISA.

according to webopedia

EISA

Acronym for Extended Industry Standard Architecture, a bus architecture designed for PCs using an Intel 80386, 80486, or Pentium microprocessor. EISA buses are 32 bits wide and support multiprocessing.

The EISA bus was designed by nine IBM competitors (sometimes called the Gang of Nine): AST Research, Compaq Computer, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Olivetti, Tandy, WYSE, and Zenith Data Systems. They designed the architecture to compete with IBM's own high-speed bus architecture called the Micro Channel architecture (MCA).

The principal difference between EISA and MCA is that EISA is backward compatible with the ISA bus (also called the AT bus), while MCA is not. This means that computers with an EISA bus can use new EISA expansion cards as well as old AT expansion cards. Computers with an MCA bus can use only MCA expansion cards.

EISA and MCA are not compatible with each other. This means that the type of bus in your computer determines which expansion cards you can install.

Neither EISA nor MCA has been very successful. Instead, a new technology called local bus (PCI) is being used in combination with the old ISA bus.

-Richard-

OOOHHH wait, are those the long black slots that Soundcards generally used?

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:29 pm**

I seriously doubt that there would be 32-bit soundcards in the early 90s. You might be talking about an ordinary 16-bit ISA slot. Lots and lots of soundcards use that long black slot.

I think EISA was unpopular because 32-bit power was unnecessary from 1989-1993. 16-bit old ISA was PLENTY for almost everything during those years! (Also, I dare say it was mighty expensive too).

Even Pentium 3 computers have ISA slots (mostly empty). Pentium 1's made extensive use of ISA cards even though they had empty PCI slots. ISA only recently retired with the Pentium 4.

So it's obvious that the world wasn't ready for EISA in the early 90s.

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:25 pm**

Yeah Dick, those are ISA. ISA actually died out with the pIII. I have a 1.1ghz system with no ISA. You CAN buy a mobo with ISA for p4s, but its useless.

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:49 pm**

OOO ya... I was thinking ISA... D'OH

Posted: **Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:07 pm**

It's like Sonic the Hedgehog holding hands with a turtle.

(reason why the decision to get rid of ISA was a wise one)

Posted: **Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:40 am**

wardrich wrote:EISA? I've ne'er heard of EISA.

OOOHHH wait, are those the long black slots that Soundcards generally used?

An EISA slot is the same length as 16-bit ISA.....BUT the slot is a chocolate brown color. No brown = no EISA. They were most common in servers and as the single motherboard slot for PC's that put their ISA/PCI slots on riser boards. A careful look at the MB interface of an EISA card will be a might familiar to some of you. The same double-sided, bi-level connection concept is used in AGP cards, so the tech was useful in the long run.

I have one video card that's EISA and maybe a drive interface card, sitting buried in a box buried in the "Cave of Beer and Pretzels".

Posted: **Thu May 20, 2004 9:45 pm**

is my browser rabid, or did you forget to finish the post?

Posted: **Fri May 21, 2004 1:44 am**

lol, he wrote something about you in invisible color!!

Posted: **Fri May 21, 2004 8:53 am**

IBM machines used the EISA slots, its very rare and few cards were made for it. I think if you use any ISA cards inan EISA machine it slows all the cards down. Probably found in high end workstations and servers (of the time). The only thing that benefits from high bandwitch in those old machines is video and HD, which VLB slots did pretty well.

Posted: **Fri May 21, 2004 9:30 am**

EISA was the upgrade version to ISA, but it made companies lose money instead of making money so they stop making them, and changed it back to ISA.

Anyways since being a technician I have only came across a handful of machines that have had EISA card slots instead of ISA & PCI card slots.
normally with EISA you just put ISA cards in them as they take both ISA & EISA.

Posted: **Thu Jun 03, 2004 4:21 am**

does anyone now if the Intel 486 is DVD compatible?

Posted: **Thu Jun 03, 2004 4:29 am**

are you all

please i need an answer to the followong question asap

the question is is Intel 486 dvd compatible??

thanks

Posted: **Thu Jun 03, 2004 4:54 am**

sure it is

Posted: **Thu Jun 03, 2004 11:31 am**

Do you mean can you install a DVD drive into a 486 machine and read data? The answer to that is yes. If your asking can a stock 486 system play back DVD movies , hell no.

Posted: **Thu Jun 03, 2004 11:02 pm**

I guess that goes for any machine that supports IDE (or is there variant standards in IDE, like EIDE, ATAPI, UDMA, etc. that may not allow DVD-ROM drives to run on 486s)

Even so, maybe the 486 can't keep up with the transfer speed of the mighty DVD drive, even at 1x, that's a lot of data running up the pike.

Posted: **Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:18 pm**

Thanks mate

Posted: **Sat Jul 03, 2004 3:26 am**

What is a motherboard

Posted: **Sat Jul 03, 2004 11:03 am**

A motherboard is flat planar board which connects almost all computer components together. It allows the computer parts to connect with each other. Without it, your computer is just a pile of parts that won't do anything. The motherboard takes power from the power supply and powers devices that are not directly connected to the power supply like the CPU, BIOS, chipset, expansion cards, etc. As well it provides the bus and connections so the CPU can communicate with the rest of the computer.

More information on http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/mobo/index.htm (hopefully a better explanation than what I provided above)

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2004 4:39 am**

THanks for the answer