Hello. Is it technically possible to develop a pci to usb converter in order to connect pci cards external to i.e a laptop?.I mean a converter with a pci slot available that connects through usb interface on the pc.And if it is where can i find infoz.A quick search didnt find any company that has such product.Thanks in advance.
In principle: sure. It takes nothing more than a plain desktop PC and a USB host-to-host "network cable". That's probably not quite what you're looking for, but still valid as a proof-of-concept.
The real question, though, would of course be: why on earth would you need such a thing? Even USB 2.0 isn't fast enough to keep up with even the basic PCI data rate of 133 MByte/s. PCI is at least a factor of 2.6 too fast for USB-2.0.
And that's before you consider the question of drivers --- there's no way the PCI card on the other end of that cable will show up in the usual PCI enumeration and be manageable by its normal driver, so you'ld have to either abstract it's functions in the "converter" to make it a regular USB device, or you'ld have re-write the drivers from scratch.
-- Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
The real question, though, would of course be: why on earth would you need such a thing?
First of all thanks for your answer.The point is that if you want to use your pci desktop cards to a laptop you simply cant do that.For example if you want to use your tv tuner(or sound card,satellite card etc) of your old desk why not isnt there such a device (pci_usb converter)in order to use it with your new powerfull laptop.So you want buy neither a new desktop or a new usb tv tuner especially for your laptop.I know that maybe it sounds crazy but then why are there other devices for example serial to usb or vice versa ?.(I answer this)Because pc maybe hasnt enough usb or serial ports. In conclusion is it impossible or just hard to do it?Is there any other way that i could follow in order to achieve the above?
Even USB 2.0 isn't fast enough to keep up with even the basic PCI data rate of 133 MByte/s. PCI is at least a factor of 2.6 too fast for USB-2.0.
What about firewire then?
Thanks once again.
Right --- you can't. Life's a bitch sometimes.
You probably ought to have considered foreseeable future developments of the PC industry when you bought those PCI cards. If you had done that, you'ld have got yourself USB devices right away, and not be having this problem now.
USB-to-serial and USB-to-parallel port convertors exist for several reasons:
*) USB is expressly meant and advertised as a replacement for those "legacy ports". So many people are likely to need them, i.e there's a sizeable and profitable market for them. *) USB, like serial and parallel, is designed to be an _external_ port, whereas PCI is strictly for on-board usage only. *) Serial and parallel ports are slow, simple things. It's pretty easy to tunnel their data through a USB connection. PCI is a whole world of trouble, in comparison.But even so, USB-to-serial converters receive lots of bashing, particularly from people in this very newsgroup, because they just don't do their job completely. Typically some of the more obscure features of a real serial ports are forgotten, or implemented incorrectly, breaking advanced usages of the device.
Hard enough to do that it's quite probably not worth trying for any peripheral makers. Impossible for an individual user for lack of infos and licences to program the necessary drivers.
Same problem. Firewire-400 is even a little slower than USB-2.0, and Firewire-800 essentially doesn't exist in anything but the latest boxes from Apple, yet, i.e. there's no market yet.
-- Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
Your help was priceless.
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USB/FW is too slow to use for PCI transfers, as was said.
However, with some laptops there are docking stations where you can place one or two odd cards, if needed. Check with your laptops manufacturer if they have such an option for you.
/Rolf
The simplest way is probably to take a PC, connect it to 1G/100M Ethernet and then transfer data over the network.
You can of course build yourself a board which has a chip with USB slave and PCI master. The NSC (Now AMD) Geode and some Motorola PowerQUICCs should do the job. The Geode has a host controller, but I think (maybe wrong) that there are devices that can bridge two USBs
How are you going to talk to your boards? You need to develop drivers.
Maybe run Linux on PC, and X-Windows to the screen.
-- Best Regards Ulf at atmel dot com These comments are intended to be my own opinion and they may, or may not be shared by my employer, Atmel Sweden.
We found a USB to ISA handy for connecting our old cards. It's a long thin card with a single ISA slot, USB cable and a disk drive type power connection. Don't know about PCI.
Peter
Well - yeah usb would take a buttload of work. yeah. But you may want to look into making a mini pci to pci converter. I know they have pci to mini pci converter cards - so I'm going to assume that it's possible to go the other way as well. Good luck!
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Does that allow a machine with only ISA slots to drive USB peripherals?
--
Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
USE worldnet address!
To connect PCI cards to a laptop you can use the Cardbus slot which most laptops have. Magma makes such an expansion chassis. Checkout the url
Cheers, Robert Rother
My god!!Its TOO expensive...
Er, no, it's the other way round. Add an ISA slot to a machine with only USB.
Peter
Still useful, although timing related things are out the window. Who sells it and for how much?
--
Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
USE worldnet address!
No, but Simtec Electronics appear to have such a product under development.
-- Wishing you good fortune, --Robin Kay-- (komadori)
NetChip has readily available chips for that
Leo Havmøller.
The company is here. The simplest ISA slot costs $119. It gives us a little extra life from our old ISA products.
Peter
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