Now that we understand the 10/100 Mbps Ethernet (9-K) *base card* ASIC, it should be easy to create our own PCI daughter boards to adapt just anything to Micro Channel.
The base card routes all necessary PCI signals to the daughter card connector, and allows I/O, memory and interrupt mapping, even busmastering.
Our only limitation seems to be choosing a chipset that we have the driver source code for, either leaked (for Win9x) or part of the Linux kernel, since we need to web all of the ASIC control code.

If you could dream, what would you like to see adapted?

USB controllers don't make too much sense, as proper OS support comes in with Windows 98, which would rule out many PS/2 systems already.
Same goes for WiFi in my understanding, as WPA is not supported below Windows XP.
Sound cards we already have plenty, and PCI ones are not better in any way.
Storage controllers could be done I guess, but will not be bootable because the BIOS can't handle the ASIC.
Video doesn't seem to make too much sense for the same reason. Maybe a video accelerator, like a Voodoo 1?

Could be the right time to create a 10/100 base card to standard PCI slot adapter...

Christian Holzapfel schrieb am Sonntag, 31. Dezember 2023 um 12:43:45 UTC+1:
> Could be the right time to create a 10/100 base card to standard PCI slot adapter...

Daughter card receptacles are 2x Molex 71436-0X64, the base board has 2x Molex 71439-0X64.

Would still need to hack the base board to identify with a unique Card ID, if we want to use it in parallel to our Ethernet adapters.
Could be the ASIC reads it at startup from the onboard 24C02 VPD EEPROM, that at least contains that card ID at the first two bytes.
Also likely and worse locations are the base board CPLD logic ICs or a fixed ID inside the ASIC, but that would be against the modular effort IBM put into this board.

On Sunday, December 31, 2023 at 4:43:45 AM UTC-7, Christian Holzapfel wrote:
> Now that we understand the 10/100 Mbps Ethernet (9-K) *base card* ASIC, it should be easy to create our own PCI daughter boards to adapt just anything to Micro Channel.
> The base card routes all necessary PCI signals to the daughter card connector, and allows I/O, memory and interrupt mapping, even busmastering.
> Our only limitation seems to be choosing a chipset that we have the driver source code for, either leaked (for Win9x) or part of the Linux kernel, since we need to web all of the ASIC control code.
>
> If you could dream, what would you like to see adapted?
>
> USB controllers don't make too much sense, as proper OS support comes in with Windows 98, which would rule out many PS/2 systems already.
> Same goes for WiFi in my understanding, as WPA is not supported below Windows XP.
> Sound cards we already have plenty, and PCI ones are not better in any way.
> Storage controllers could be done I guess, but will not be bootable because the BIOS can't handle the ASIC.
> Video doesn't seem to make too much sense for the same reason. Maybe a video accelerator, like a Voodoo 1?
>
> Could be the right time to create a 10/100 base card to standard PCI slot adapter...

I think a voodoo 1 would have the largest appeal to everyone.
Alternatively a new video card would also be great. something with very early 3d acceleration.
maybe a mpeg2 decoder? i know some FMV games used them and that would be a thing.

On Sunday, December 31, 2023 at 6:43:45 AM UTC-5, Christian Holzapfel wrote:
> Now that we understand the 10/100 Mbps Ethernet (9-K) *base card* ASIC, it should be easy to create our own PCI daughter boards to adapt just anything to Micro Channel.
> The base card routes all necessary PCI signals to the daughter card connector, and allows I/O, memory and interrupt mapping, even busmastering.
> Our only limitation seems to be choosing a chipset that we have the driver source code for, either leaked (for Win9x) or part of the Linux kernel, since we need to web all of the ASIC control code.
>
> If you could dream, what would you like to see adapted?
>
> USB controllers don't make too much sense, as proper OS support comes in with Windows 98, which would rule out many PS/2 systems already.
> Same goes for WiFi in my understanding, as WPA is not supported below Windows XP.
> Sound cards we already have plenty, and PCI ones are not better in any way.
> Storage controllers could be done I guess, but will not be bootable because the BIOS can't handle the ASIC.
> Video doesn't seem to make too much sense for the same reason. Maybe a video accelerator, like a Voodoo 1?
>
> Could be the right time to create a 10/100 base card to standard PCI slot adapter...

I'd have to disagree about WiFi, you can do WPA2 with AES on Windows 98 using Odyseey Client 4.52 - https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot.com/2019/11/odyssey-client-452.html However, if I really really needed WiFi, I'd just use a WiFi to ethernet adapter.

Graphics is definately an issue on PS/2's The VGA chip on most boards is very slow and the video ram is like 512KB. Upgrading video is a night and day difference. For example, a Model 60 with a 486SLC2 upgrade couldn't play Doom until I put an XGA2 card in it. The onboard VGA is just fucking terrible. We need an easy to pop in SVGA card with a BIOS that can disable onboard video.

I would like to see USB, but I use a network share for the most part for file transfer.