From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Mon Apr 19 2004 - 08:16:09 PDT
>>Now I need only to find a kind soul to explain to me what Cirrus Logic and
>>Apple might have meant by "cascadeable" regarding the Voyager chipset (ref.
>>above link), and I'll be all satisfied as regards this topic. --
>
> In the electronic world, cascadeable usually means that you can expand
>a device connecting it to a previous device in a serial fashion. An example
>that you'll like: MIDI devices are cascadeable. You can have one computer,
>then can add a keyboard, to that keyboard you can connect a sequencer, to
>that sequencer, you can connect a sampler, etc... They connect one after
>the other, like cascades in a river.
Thanks, Daniel! Your kindness much appreciated!
Now, this may come as a total shock to some, but that's exactly what I
thought, too. It's just that having asked this a half dozen times within
the last 4 weeks at NTLK and some mails, too, going even so far as to ask
whether it'd mean it's "like IDE or SCSI" - one stringa rope, buncha stuff
tied to it along the way... Well, it made me seriously doubt my sanity -
did I only imagine this in the documentation and the interview?
Having two constructive answers like Paul's (well, to somebody else,
though, but still), and now yours, Daniel, all in a few hours time - it's
just too much for my faint heart. I've gotta lie down a bit, oh boy. ;=}
Okay, enough fun, back to productivity mode:
If (a) all the crap you'd need in the OS to support more than two (in the
eMate: one) PC Card devices IS ACTUALLY DERE, MAHN!, and (b) "cascadeable"
is understood in the electronic world as "some stuff switched in a line" or
"serial", then what would stop any enterprising person who'd know which
side the soldering iron is hot on from hacking additional slots in line?
I've discussed my idea that this might be something like a bus architecture
with Frank Gruendel. From him I take the biggest prob is (if Paul is right:
was) any OS-limitations (yo, Frank, *I'd told ya* they'd have planned those
4 ports in, didn't I? ;=} I mean, not much use to custom-design a 4-port
PC Card platform together with Cirrus and then not implementing it in the
OS, is there?), and then there's hardware issue: What to attach the slots to?
The way I understood Frank, 2x00 provides two CL-PS7030, and eMate only
one. So it's exactly one controller per PC Card. But *IF* there's a
controller for every slot, how's that cascadeable aka "serial" - one
controller per port looks more like a parallel architecture, no?
Cirrus Logic said in their Voyager Chipset-press release a very distinct
sentence "The PS7030 PCMCIA Controller offers a cascadable architecture
with support for up to four PCMCIA slots" (link at the Wish List page, read
the interview and the Cirrus release for more details). Now what does this
mean - does a single CL-PS7030 support 4 ports in line or not? If it does,
why would 2x00 then have more than one of these chips? And where dey be
hooked up to? What Cirrus saying, huh?
This hardware thing got me confused. I think it's knots-inna-string, Daniel
says that "cascadeable" means just that, but why then more than one
controller on MP 2x00?
Cirrus say the controller offers "a cascadable architecture" - not
Voyager, not "several PS7030 chips". We now agree on what cascadeable
means, we know what architecture means - but - Q: What does this mean to
Cirrus and their PC Card 2.01 implementation in Apple's N2 platform?
Any ideas, folks?
Respectfully,
'Kasko
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