Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!faatcrl!jimb
From: jimb@faatcrl.UUCP (Jim Burwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: SoftPC for the Amiga 3000
Message-ID: <127@faatcrl.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 90 04:15:51 GMT
References: <2178@bambam.UUCP> <117@faatcrl.UUCP> <382@cbmger.UUCP> <124@faatcrl.UUCP> <388@cbmger.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City NJ
Lines: 56

peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes:

>In article <124@faatcrl.UUCP> jimb@faatcrl.UUCP (Jim Burwell) writes:
>>
>>Hmm.  Can cards plugged into the AT slots on the A2000 and A3000 be
>>accessed by the 680x0 ?  Or is it on a totally separate bus ?  If they're
>>accessible by the Amiga side, isn't there a way that SoftPC could make use 
>>of the cards ?  I was never sure of this...

>Well, if your bridgeboard is up and running, then you can communicate
>with all stuff on the PC/AT side by means of the functions provided by
>the Janus library (on Amiga and PC side).

O well..

>If you don't have a bridgeboard, the busses are completely separated,
>you have ONLY power supply on the PC/AT slots. But as far as I know
>there may exist one (some?) Amiga card(s) that connects the Amiga bus
>with the PC bus and makes the latter accessible for I/O. But don't
>know any details or producers, sorry. But I'm sure these I/O addresses
>are in the end different from their situation in a PC, so access by
>SoftPC wpuld be at least questionable.

Yeah.  I guess the only way you could do it if there were address 
decoding conflicts would be through MMU magic.  Of course, if the
Amiga/PC cards had address conflics, the machine might not be able
to boot anyway.  And the only fix I could think of is making the
PC bus-Amiga bus connector an Autoconfig card which connects the
two busses only on software request, after the MMU is set up.  :-)
Ridiculous.  So forget SoftPC + IBM cards.  But who cares ?  I
still want SoftPC!  I can live with using Zorro III cards and the
Amiga side of things with SoftPC. ;-)  

Seriously, if it were reasonable cheap, I think SoftPC might cause a lot 
of people to reconsider purchasing PC compatibility on the Amiga.  There are 
probably a lot of people who would love to run PC software on their 
Amigas, but not so much that they'd consider shelling out the cash for
a bridgecard (although the effect SoftPC could have on the Amiga business
software market makes me a little uneasy about it).  With a port of SoftPC,
CBM could offer both a high-end, high-compatibility/reliability PC 
compatibility solution (bridgecard), and a low-end, less-compatible/reliable 
solution (SoftPC).  Each has its plusses and minuses.  The BridgeCard does
the job far better than any software emulation could, giving you both
hardware and software compatibility, but it's expensive.  SoftPC would do
good job of software emulation, but you couldn't use IBM hardware (cards)
with it, but it's cheap.

Owell....
Just some thoughts...
C'ya,
Jim
-- 
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