Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!mips!jay
From: jay@mips.COM (Jay McCauley)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,comp.periphs
Subject: Re: Designing for the FHF (was Re: Proprietary hardware)
Message-ID: <16176@winchester.mips.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 89 21:24:19 GMT
References: <2140@cpoint.UUCP> <3743@stiatl.UUCP> <1204@naucse.UUCP> <1410@husc6.harvard.edu> <18167@gatech.edu> <4899@cbnews.ATT.COM> <18204@gatech.edu> <13332@sequent.UUCP> <1989Mar28.171856.21202@utzoo.uucp> <7745@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: jay@mips.COM (Jay McCauley)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 19
Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:5701 comp.periphs:1658

In article <7745@pyr.gatech.EDU> byron@pyr.UUCP (Byron A Jeff) writes:
>Has anyone ever interfaced a PC peripheral with a PC bus connector to
>anything other than a 80X86 motherboard? To follow Henry's idea is to 
>simply build another PC clone in my estimation. And to be perfectly honest 
>why build another PC clone when you can buy one cheaper. I think the
>motherboard physical sizing is a good idea but to conform to PC
>bus elcetrical specs is a cop out.
>

The MIPS m/120 has an AT bus for peripheral expansion cards.
This is an R2000-based UNIX system, no Intel CPUs anywhere.  There were
some challenges in matching the relatively slow AT bus to the system, and
working out the details of all the bus transactions, but nothing insurmountable.

The system has its own (not AT card based) SCSI, Ethernet and serial ports,
so the AT bus is used in the way Henry suggests.

You get access to some very cost-effective peripheral cards for the
small matter of software for UNIX drivers :-)