Author: The Paranoid (p54aea7d8.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
Date: 03-19-2007 13:53
Yes, you're right, the Falcon expansion slot contains all
of the signals to support a busmaster - But it is restricted
to a 16 Bit data bus. A full PCI support would require to
support 32 Bit transfers.
Still, i have to agree with you and correct myself: It would
have been possible to make Eclipse capable of supporting
bus-mastering by multiplexing the 16 Bit data bus,
employing additional intelligence on the Eclipse card.
Instead the software approach was chosen: By restricting
Eclipse to be a PCI bus slave, the bus width was only
controlled by the driver software and could therefore
be restricted to a maximum of 16 Bits.
