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NEC USB 2 Card & Power Mac 5500 not working
Posted by: Coloruser on 2023-04-20 11:29:43
HI,

I´ve got a NEC 5 Port USB 2 card donated some time ago and thought, I would give it a try in my 5500. Unfortunately, 9.0.4 includes the drivers, but doesn't seem to recognise the card. Strangely, with the card installed, system profiler shows me three unknown PCI devices. Without the card, the device tree just lists the internal ATI graphics and the ComSlot Ethernet under PCI.

The used NEC Chip is labelled D720101GJ. Any idea whether the combination of this NEC chip and the 5500 works? As it is not a card with a PCI bridge, the Gazelle "issues" with PCI should at least be easier, right?

Checking the data sheet of the NEC controller, I can see that it internally has three devices. Two OHCI host controllers and 1 EHCI host controller. Does this really act like a PCI bridge and therefore I can see the three PCI devices in the device tree?

Appreciate your thoughts 🙂
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-04-20 11:37:28
HI,

I´ve got a NEC 5 Port USB 2 card donated some time ago and thought, I would give it a try in my 5500. Unfortunately, 9.0.4 includes the drivers, but doesn't seem to recognise the card. Strangely, with the card installed, system profiler shows me three unknown PCI devices. Without the card, the device tree just lists the internal ATI graphics and the ComSlot Ethernet under PCI.

The used NEC Chip is labelled D720101GJ. Any idea whether the combination of this NEC chip and the 5500 works? As it is not a card with a PCI bridge, the Gazelle "issues" with PCI should at least be easier, right?

Checking the data sheet of the NEC controller, I can see that it internally has three devices. Two OHCI host controllers and 1 EHCI host controller. Does this really act like a PCI bridge and therefore I can see the three PCI devices in the device tree?

Appreciate your thoughts 🙂
Many USB cards show up as multiple devices with an internal bridge. I'd suggest running the patch and seeing if it fixes it.

The Great Gazelle PCI Hack Thread, Part 2

Yeah, there was a bug in my emulation code so I was wrong about OF 1.0.5 not probing a nested bridge. But I still see a limit: it won't probe a doubly nested bridge. FF831B60: /bandit@F2000000 FF83F048: /pci-bridge@E FF83FCB0: /pci-bridge@0 FF8408F0: /pci-bridge@0 FF841558...
68kmla.org 68kmla.org
Posted by: Snial on 2023-04-20 13:03:18
It always strikes me as odd that we don't have USB host support for virtually all NuBus / PCMCIA and PCI Macs going back to the 68K era. Fairly humble MCUs in the region of tens of MHz can manage USB hosting and since USB 1.1 throughput is throttled by the CPU itself, I would have thought it was quite feasible.
Posted by: cheesestraws on 2023-04-20 13:21:02
I would have thought it was quite feasible.

Presumably it hasn't been useful enough to anyone who could implement it to be worth the time to implement it.
Posted by: macuserman on 2023-04-20 13:24:05
Presumably it hasn't been useful enough to anyone who could implement it to be worth the time to implement it.
A USB Nubus card is something I've always planned to attempt at some point, but life just hasn't dealt me those cards yet timewise.
Posted by: Snial on 2023-04-20 13:46:23
Presumably it hasn't been useful enough to anyone who could implement it to be worth the time to implement it.
Maybe. One would have to write System 7 drivers, or some kind of subsystem INIT that could then be combined with conventional drivers that would then need to be written. And the most common cases: USB to SCSI or USB serial to Mac Serial or USB to ADB bridge are almost certainly easier to do on the embedded systems themselves.

It's a bit like the question of developing a Macduino, where one can write e.g. in THINK C with a similar Arduino API and it drives GPIOs, ADCs, DACs, PWMs, Timers, UARTs etc and maybe even hook up to Arduino shields (ESP32) without too much hassle.
Posted by: Forrest on 2023-04-20 13:59:39
The chipset on the card needs to support OHCI according to Apple http://www.virtualinformation.com/drivers/USBCardSupport.htm
Posted by: Coloruser on 2023-04-23 09:54:57
Well, as mentioned above, the card is OHCI compliant. Without USB Card Support 1.4.1, the System Profiler only lists the card as three PCI Devices. With USB Card Support, the profiler shows 2 PCI USB Cards and 1 PCI Device. After applying the patch from @Phipli the Profiler shows the same, but no USB Sticks or a USB mouse on either of the ports shows up working (albeit the mouse at least lights up). Any idea?
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-04-23 15:00:24
The used NEC Chip is labelled D720101GJ
Keep trying. Perhaps try running the OS installer again and selecting the PCI USB option manually in custom install (even if you've already tried).

The card I have in my 6500 (same logic board) has an NEC D720100A - I haven't reviewed the specs of yours, but the part numbers sound fairly similar 🙂

Here is your motivation :
1