Data wanted on Dec. Rainbow 100 GPIB-PC Interface card

[Obsolete100]

At one time NI made a GPIB interface card for the Digital Equipment Corp.'s Rainbow 100 computer. I cannot find its part number, pictures of it, manuals or software.

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Does anybody know how compatible it is with the ISA 8-bit bus version ?

? Does it use an Interrupt and DMA over lay done in logic to emulate the PC'S ISA       peripheral controllers addresses, to make it fully software compatible with the ISA 

counterpart.

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Giving the age of such a interface, I don not think NI will release data form their archive, if they still even have it.

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[oscarfonseca · Accepted solution]

Hello Obsolete100,

I was able to find the manual that seems to include the "Rainbow GPIB-PC", which was the interface used for this comptuer. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything else on it besides this document from 1988: GPIB-PC User Manual for the IBM Personal Computer and Compatibles.

Regards,

[Obsolete100 · Accepted solution]

Did not reply early, mainly because the manual (document) was form 1988. 

Its contents would have likely been revised. (Omitted items).

.. One printed from 1981 to 1983 might have data for the Dec. Rainbow 100 computer's

.. GPIB-PC card. This card could have been private labeled for NI ?

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Could also be numbered GPIB-PC100, but no NI catalogs form 1981 to 1983 could be found on-line, part numbers unknown.

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Thanks for the relpy

[Obsolete100]

Does anybody know if the dos based drivers for the IBM PC Bus (ISA) version of the GPIB-PC100 card by pass the system's Bios and goes directly to predefined hardware addresses. If not I could always get a bus adapter card made and then use a standard NI ISA based GPIB card. But, If the ISA bus version drivers goes directly to a predefined hardware address that would mean a lot more to custom make a bus adapter.

.. The I/O address map and Memory map is different on the Dec. Rainbow 100 computer than on the IBM PC XT class of system. So I would like to know how hardware dependent the ISA bus version is.

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It might be easier to use a competitor's product and make a different bus adapter and then patch their old drivers. Aka ! a none NI STD or ISBX based GPIB card.

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I was going to email this question earlier.