On June 26, Chuck McManis wrote:
> Ok, to push this insanely off topic rant back marginally on topic, how 
> difficult would it be to create an XMI to PCI Nexus adapter? How about SBI 
> to PCI? Q-bus to PCI? Even a limited subset?
> 
> We've talked about building Q-bus SCSI cards because they are so hard to 
> find, but why not build a PCI bridge and then use the existing cards? I 
> have NO IDEA how difficult this would be. One man year? 10? Impossible?

  There are lots of "free core" projects and archives popping up all
over the place.  and http://tech-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/vhdl/
and http://www.free-ip.com, for example.  I haven't done a complete
search through all of these, but there's GOT to be a free PCI
implementation available as VHDL from somewhere.  If there isn't now,
I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

  Anyway, using that as a base...the Q-bus isn't a very complex bus; I
think it could be done with a minimum of hassle.  XMI, however, may be
a different story.  Isn't there a lack of public XMI documentation
problem?

         -Dave McGuire