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[News] Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for MediatorANN.lu
Posted on 13-Sep-2002 05:08 GMT by Christian Kemp12 comments
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Elbox Computer is proud to introduce the first USB 2.0 host controller for the Amiga computers. The Spider USB 2.0 PCI card provides a simple and affordable way to add five Hi-Speed USB ports to Mediator-equipped Amigas.
The Spider USB 2.0 Hi-Speed PCI controller is backward-compatible, which means it works also with older USB 1.1 peripherals. Features:
  • Four external and one internal USB 2.0 Hi-Speed ports
  • Compatible with both USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) and USB 1.1 (12 Mbps) devices
  • Compliant with EHCI, OHCI and PCI 2.2 standards
  • All ports can handle high-speed, full-speed and low-speed transaction
  • Supports up to 127 downstream USB devices
  • Supplies 500 mA power to each USB port
  • Supports PCI-Bus Power Management Interface
  • Hot Plug Capability
Requirements:
  • One free PCI slot
  • Mediator Multimedia CD
The package contents:
  • Spider USB 2.0 High-Speed PCI card
  • Mediator OHCI USB drivers for the Poseidon stack
  • Unregistered, time-limited version of the Poseidon USB stack
Mediator EHCI USB drivers for the Poseidon stack will be shipped to registered Spider Card users as a free update (when completed).

Pricing and availability:
The Spider USB 2.0 High-Speed PCI card will be on sale as of 16 September 2002, at the suggested retail price of EUR 39.95 (VAT excl.) To locate an authorized distributor or purchase the product visit the Elbox Computer website.

Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 1 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 13-Sep-2002 04:37 GMT
I had to have a small grin at this, having found myself reading up on USB at random just a few hours before the story made Amiga.org.
Basically, lest the acronym soup get to you... Backwards-compatible USB 2.0 designs are apparently industry-standard, barring any oddness in the first generation of hardware. EHCI (USB 2.0) is a different beast from the OHCI and UHCI controllers of USB1.x; the onus is placed on the hub to switch or route traffic to the OHCI/UHCI silicon as appropriate. This all ends up on one (presumably commodity) chip, as you can see from one of Via's reference designs - http://www.viavpsd.com/products/VPSD2580E_spec.jsp - so whether Elbox did their own design or not, it's the same as any commodity card.
Of course, the selling point is the driver support for the chosen chipset, and Euro 40 undercuts a 'big name' like Keyspan, if not the best no-name deals on Pricewatch. Amigas using commodity hardware sold at market prices- and an Amiga company doing the selling? Who'd've thought!
--
If it's any clearer, here's a quote from the NetBSD manual page for its 'ehci' EHCI driver:
"EHCI controllers are peculiar in that they can only handle the USB 2.0
protocol. This means that they normally have one or more companion con-
trollers (i.e., ohci(4) or uhci(4)) handling USB 1.x devices. Conse-
quently each USB connector is electrically connected to two USB con-
trollers. The handling of this is totally automatic, but can be noticed
since USB 1.x and USB 2.0 devices plugged in to the same connector appear
to connect to different USB busses."
...and http://www.insilicon.com/products/images/ushost2_lg.gif is a handy block diagram of a controller design someone's marketing.
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 2 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 13-Sep-2002 06:19 GMT
The thing that worries me is that the Elbox USB drivers are shipped with the spider card... now, what if I want to buy an £8 USB card from ebuyer.com, instead of a £50 one from Elbox. Does that mean I can't get the drivers?!
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 3 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 13-Sep-2002 06:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Peter Gordon):
Lemme ask this this way.. why should you? Those drivers are not freebies.. They are sold as a part of HW/SW package and that package costs whatever they think is right for it.
I'm not going to comment their pricing (have not even checked it yet) but I'm quite sure they have used money, time and effort on making those things to work.
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 4 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 13-Sep-2002 06:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (JoannaK):
I'm not saying its my right to get those drivers, I'm just saying that the whole point about the Mediator is that you can use standard PCI cards. Elbox sell it as such:
"The Mediator is a PCI implementation for connecting PCI devices in Amiga computers, allowing expansion of Amiga with all kinds of industry standard hardware products like graphic, sound, network, USB, TV tuner, ISDN and MPEG-2 hardware decoder PCI cards." - Elbox website
Admittedly, theres nothing stopping someone else getting the NDA then writing their own drivers, but Elbox won't tell anyone how their DMA trick works, so such drivers would be crippled compared to the official Elbox ones.
IMPORTANT:
I'm not saying Elbox are doing anything wrong here, I have a lot of respect for them. They have created some excellent hardware and software solutions and I am a big fan. I was just expecting to be able to buy my own USB card :)
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 5 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 13-Sep-2002 07:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Peter Gordon):
I know this same diallemma from my X86-BeOS times... Having bunch of nice hardware but there were no drivers for using them. Thus, no printer, no scanner, no networking (I had wavelan connection at that time.. that needs PCI-PCMCIA adapter and Special-Drivers from manufacturer). After some time.. Well, it Was nice os, but badly lacking on drivers.
So, you can connect those PCI-cards to your expansion and they do fit. But getting them to work requires some software too. And if some cards are not supported by them or third parties.. Taff.. :(
Theya re all in here.. If it's in there it should work. If not, well... someone needs to make that driver to get it done.
http://www.elbox.com/mediator_driver_guide.html
And, about that Spider thingy: They don't have fully working USB-2 drivers yet available. It's currently only working as an older USB (OHCI).. that new chip support (EHCIfaster modes and other extensions) is on development.
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 6 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by koan on 13-Sep-2002 10:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (JoannaK):
I know it costs money to develop drivers.
However, if Elbox want to make the Mediator look
attractive (or any other hardware they produce) then
they have to think about supporting it.
The Amiga market is small, yes; but you can't expect
users to buy products that the manufacturer won't
support.
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 7 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 11:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (koan):
Umm.. people complaim that Amiga hardware costs 3-4 times the cost of PC hardware.
Elbox puts out a *nice* PCI based USB adapter for the same or cheaper than a PC equivelent as can be found in a retail store.
Now people are complaining the can save a few measly dollars on an OEM part through pricewatch.
Buy that cheap-o OEM part, go ahead.
Now write your own driver.
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 8 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 13-Sep-2002 16:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Anonymous):
#7
Well written and just my thought.
Respect to Elbox for (once again) delivering a nice product for the Amiga (and this one probably for the A1, pegaSOS, pc etc...).
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 9 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Rob on 13-Sep-2002 17:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (koan):
Elbox should support their products.
What kind of statement is that. If you've done your research you
should know that there are currently Mediator drivers for:
Voodoo3
Virge DX
5 different Soundblaster 128 chipsets
many different TV cards
ethernet 10 base T
ethernet 10/100
USB card with 4 ports
When O4 is available you will also have G3/G4 processor cards.
That enables you to do quite a lot of stuff you couldn't do before.
There is now support for Warp3D, VHI studio (frame grabbing) and the
Poseiden USB stack. Elbox are supporting two different Amiga software
developers and the users by writing these drivers.
For USB printer drivers etc contact the Poseiden people.
BTW. what's wrong with companies like Elbox wanting to make money out
of the Amiga market by offering some excellent products which would
otherwise not be available too you all.
If Commodore had taken this approach with Amiga they might still be
here now
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 10 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by koan on 13-Sep-2002 19:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Rob):
I never said "Elbox should support their products".
Talk about over the top.
All I'm saying is that any hardware producer
needs to support their product. As you point out
(and I didn't know) Elbox make a lot of drivers available.
Good.
If the only PCI cards that are supported by Mediator
are dead expensive then very few people will be interested in
Mediator. (Read that again before you reply, especially
the first word).
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 11 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by koan on 13-Sep-2002 19:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (koan):
...and further more, I think E40 sounds quite cheap.
I happen to own some Elbox products so I've got no
problem with them.
Reading post #2, are you sure the guy wasn't only asking
if the drivers were available (for a reasonable fee?).
Elbox ships Spider USB 2.0 PCI card for Mediator : Comment 12 of 12ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 13-Sep-2002 23:43 GMT
Note that I think the product and pricing is a Pretty Good Thing, if I didn't make it clear in the technical post...
That said, what I find interesting is that Elbox isn't daring to suggest that Spider could function on Mac or PC, when reference drivers- at least Windows ones- are surely available for any commodity chipset. Support would be a headache, certainly, but if they adopted a no-support-but-no-questions-money-back policy on sales to the Wintel set, surely they'd come out ahead of targeting Amigans alone.
Small shops trying to cover both Amiga and Wintel/Amithlon would benefit- they'd need only stock one card, coming with one driver CD, and 'normal humans' might catch a glimpse of the next-gen hardware while ducking in for a USB card or a network cable.
How many such dealers are left, anyway? Sounds like Europe has a few still around and kicking...
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