E3B Highway USB questions

[spudje]

I am expecting an Amiga 3000D soon. It contains, among others, an E3B Highway USB card. I have some questions about it.

- Will the Poseidon 4.4 stack posted in the zone some time ago work with this? Or should I go for a different stack, e.g. Anaiis?

- Will a USB DVDburner drive work, at least to read CDROMs. Will it read DVDROMs? Is burning supported (I don't need it)? How picky is it concerning hardware. Will a drive like this work http://www.samsung.com/au/support/model/SE-208DB/TSBS? Will the Highway USB power the drive sufficiently over 1 USB port? Or do I need a Y USB cable, or a powered HUB? Since the Highway only supports USB 1 speeds, will that be a problem reading the CDROMs?

- How picky is it on USB ethernet devices? Or will all/most work?

- Is it speedy enough for a USB sound card? Any suggestions for a device? What will it offer me? AHI? mp3 playback?

Thanks in advance for all replies!!!

[Locutus]

The Highway is a nice card.

- The latest version of Poseidon should work as long as you have the driver for the Highway installed.

- USB Drives probably work atleast for reading, i think they get listed as a scsi device using usbscsi.device.

- USB Power, i really really really wouldn't bet on connecting anything high power draw to a scarce hard to replace USB card for the Amiga, just get a powered USB hub and be /sure/ it will be fine.

- USB Ethernet, theres drivers for some common ones, ASIX, rtl8150 and Pegasus. Exactly what you get when you buy a USB->Ethernet dongle is ofcourse up for grabs. However dont expect to much in regards to performance and it'll eat a lot of CPU power.

- USB Sound, i think it should work keep in mind that it just gives you a AHI audio output, there is no mp3 decompression assist or anything like that. So if you're 030 cant playback mp3s over Paula it sure as hell wont do it over USB Audio :-)

[spudje]

Ok, thanks a lot for the quick and clear answers! Then I will put sound and network out of the question (It also has Ariadne, but thought maybe could save a zorro slot.)

What do you mean with "as long as you have the driver for the Highway installed". Is that a separate driver that came with the Highway, or is that part of the Poseidon stack and I have to make sure to also install that?

[Locutus]

Poseidon has its drivers for the USB host in Devs:USBHardware/


So you can grab the latest Poseidon from icomp and then put the .device for your Highway from a older distribution in Devs:USBHardware/

[spudje]

Ah ok, thanks. That's smart, so I can run icomp's latest Poseidon with E3B hardware support.

[spudje]

Another question. Will I be able, when creating a boot disk from here http://amiga911maker.site11.com/index-1024.htm with USB and CDROM support, to boot from that disk, use a USB keyboard and install OS3.9 from USB CDROM?

Mmm, I would still face a challenge:
I boot A3000D with floppy and USB/CDROM support. I install OS3.9
I reboot from HDD with clean installed OS3.9 without USB stack
Then I need to install the USB stack. But since I only have an USB keybaord for the first couple of weeks can that be done without a native Amiga keyboard?

[thomas]

Will I be able, when creating a boot disk ... with USB and CDROM support, to boot from that disk, use a USB keyboard and install OS3.9 from USB CDROM?

Yes.

from here http://amiga911maker.site11.com/index-1024.htm

Well, It would be better if you'd understand what is needed to make a boot disk with USB and CD drivers and make your own. That would help you with your other question:

Then I need to install the USB stack. But since I only have an USB keybaord for the first couple of weeks can that be done without a native Amiga keyboard?

You could just copy USB support from the floppy to your harddisk.

Or make the floppy so that it loads USB drivers resident, then they would be present after one reboot.

OTOH I don't know if a keyboard is needed to install Poseidon. I suppose you can do it with a mouse only.

[spudje]

OK, thanks a lot. Good to hear it should be working. And it requires me to learn some new things about the machine. Sounds like a fun experience!!

[spudje]

OK, revisiting my own topic. Most of the USB stuff I've got running after all these years now. I didn't opt for the USB network card. However, I'm still considering a USB soundcard. Can anybody point me to one that is supported by AHI/Poseidon/Highway, ideally with 2 inputs to loop through Paula and CD rom.

Mmm, I'm also reading posts that audio will not work on Highway. Or was this only with older Poseidon releases and will it work with the latest?

[Dynamic_Computi]

From everything I have read, USB audio cards cannot keep up unless you have an 060 - even then they are not perfect.
My favorite addition is a multi-card reader. I often have an SD, CF and a USB plugged in all at the same time, and the Amiga sees then just fine.
I have gas terrible time with USB networking cards. I have only had one that worked.

I have a USB Bose speaker system with integrated audio - I am going hook it up and see what happens. My guess it will recognize it but not be able to assign a class to it.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Dynamic_Computi

From everything I have read, USB audio cards cannot keep up unless you have an 060 - even then they are not perfect.

I recommend you to use AHI v4.18 since it has better optimisations than newer versions, and even more important than that, is to tweak AHI´s settings. Not only play with the quality control, but also finetune the cpu usage limit for your particular setting.

[spudje]

I'm considering running it on a A4000D with CSPPC with 060, so powerwise I guess that's fine. Would this do the trick http://www.sweex.com/computer/audio/...ereo-550512280 ?

[whaka]

Originally Posted by spudje

I'm still considering a USB soundcard. Can anybody point me to one that is supported by AHI/Poseidon/Highway, ideally with 2 inputs to loop through Paula and CD rom.

any cheap dongle can work.
but i'm afraid you can't easily expect loop possibilities.

to my knowledge, there's no usb soundcard with direct hardware loop.
you can probably find a card with some line input, but you'll have to control them by software... ahi can probably do that for recording purpose, if the audio usb driver allow inputs to work.
but i don't think you can loop permanently (whdload for exemple). so, it'll be at cost of cpu cycles, and usb bandwidth.

[spudje]

Thanks! OK, so I'll have to mix Paula and AHI outside of the Amiga.

[grelbfarlk]

If you have an A4000 you can output the USB sound to the CD-Audio in on the motherboard so the USB audio gets mixed with Paula there, but the volume is a little low unless you replace a couple resistors. If you still have the Mediator the the easiest thing is a PCI sound card, which I'm sure you know.

[spudje]

That's an idea as well, I'll require some "reverse splitter" to also input my CD Audio via that socket still