Help with new BBA adapter (cont. from Cluster)

[semicolo]

I don't know if anyone has tried to break the sega chip. I cannot help on this, I don't own a BBA nor a logic analyser.

[Chaotis]

Does anyone know where we can get the realtec chip to use for prototyping? I've seen places to order it but that's only in bulk (orders over 500$). I've thought about contacting realtec themselves but wanted to ask those who know more about ICs first.

Still haven't found any more information on the BBA.

[semicolo]

I was more thinking of using an ethernet pci card with a rt8139 on it than building one. (and say the pci interface could work for other pci cards)

[pboese]

I see the product webpage is little more than marketing hype:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/p...aspx?modelid=7

I think unless you are a motherboard or high volume PCI card mfr you are out of luck. If I were you I would get a logic analyzer, study a BBA in operation and then use a glue chip with someone elses chip to make a functional clone.

[Alexvrb]

Stock BBA is 10 mbits/sec. But the problem is that you're going to have a very hard time obtaining what is needed to build a drop-in replacement that is BBA-compatible. Whatever you build is probably going to end up being a custom solution that only works for devving and homebrew that supports it.

Which is why I recommend USB <-> DC Serial if your goal is just good speed for a dev cable. If your goal is a BBA replacement, good luck.

[pboese]

[quote author=Alexvrb link=board=hardware;num=1101681619;start=15#24 date=12/04/04 at 17:54:16]...
Which is why I recommend USB <-> DC Serial if your goal is just good speed for a dev cable. If your goal is a BBA replacement, good luck.[/quote]

;D

[Chaotis]

I guess then the best way to describe what I hope to eventually build is the highest speed connection I can to a network. Though it may be useful for dev; I mainly want it as something that can be used in homebrew games and software to communicate with either other dreamcasts (for multiplayer) or a computer (clusters or streaming programs like video players).

I had hoped that it wouldn't be too much harder to keep it compatible with the previous BBA it doesn't sound too likely so the best we can hope for is a good replacement.

Still looking for anyone with a bba to give us some information on it's workings though.

[Alexvrb]

BBA is only 10mbits, and that's plenty fast for everything except maybe a DC cluster, in which case 100mbits would be plenty (for this hardware, at any rate). So really, you don't need to worry about maxing out the expansion port unless you're building a custom non-ISA ATA interface or some other fast storage device. Further, BBA compatibility would be awesome, but is unlikely. I'd be happy with a homebrew-use-only 10 or 100 mbit ethernet adapter of any sort... but that's still a whole lot of work.

For dev and streaming video/audio, Axlen's cable should suffice (given appropriate software support in the latter case).

[RangerGuy]

Holy crap! I think I have an old NIC card with that RealTek chip in it! I'll have to double check to see.

BTW, I am behind deving a new BBA 100%, and would help as much as possible.

[Chaotis]

I've been looking into a lot of options lately but sadly, haven't been able to find any new information. We really need someone to look at their bba and give us some more info on how it works.

If we can find another ethernet controller ic that we can buy online for fairly cheap; we should start studying to see if we can't get it to work. How much data would be able to be sent at a time if it must be stored on the ethernet ic until it has had time to be sent to the dc, which recieves it at half the speed. Hopefully the ethernet ic can handle this dynamically so it doesn't overrun it's memory because it can't get the data out as fast as it's coming it.

Hrm... well just a bunch of questions to be asked for those that understand electronics, hope I made some kind of sense. O_<