[GRLUG] Old isa motherboard & linux

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Joseph McLaughlin <jwm8351 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The board is in an old 286 made 486 that is full sized and a digital io
> board with maybe 5 ports (24 lines each) --- by memory.
> I also have relay board that uses an isa board, a lpt port and a serial port
>
> I will have to digging thru my old boxes to see what Hardware I have..
> If I could add a usb card ---- humm.

Maybe. I believe there used to be ISA-based USB cards out there. Best
place to find such a beast would be CompRenew.

> Maybe a sata card!!

Absolutely not. A SATA controller attached via ISA would be an amazing
thing indeed.

Although...There *may* be PCI controller cards out there that attached
to an ISA bus. (Wouldn't that be strange...) Still, your I/O
throughput would absolutely suck. You'd be better off using an
IDE->SATA adapter.

>
> Could a c program compiled on ubuntu run under msdos?

Using the appropriate cross-compilers, sure.

> And did msdos have client server built in?

No. You'd need a network card and the appropriate packet driver for
it. For Linux, an old 3Com 3c509 would be just perfect.

Really, though, it souds like you just want to be able to drive these
I/O boards and relay controllers. The Radio Shack in Woodland Mall has
USB versions of these for only $50. That's going to be a far, far
smaller headache.

-- 
:wq