can virtual guest machine access random host PC hardware devices?

[jmelson]

We just got a (guess) $30K device from another department that ran on a 1995 DOS 6.x computer.  It has a giant ISA card that receives data from the device.
The original computer worked for a little while, but then  totally died.  The hard drive is good, and I imaged it.  We have now set up a Win 98 virtual machine, with VMware Player, in a Win 7 host machine that does have an ISA slot.  But, will the old DOS software be able to access that ISA card in the host machine?  Is there anything special I need to do in VMWare to allow that?  The original software does seem to have a .VXI file, but the documentation is REALLY sketchy on technical details, so we have no idea of the I/O address range.  (I'm guessing it is not memory-mapped, as it only uses the 8-bit portion of the ISA connector.
Anybody done anything like this?
Thanks in advance for any tips!
Jon

[mjj]

My understanding is that this is not possible with VMware products. I had a similar requirement and ultimately just had to go bare metal after a few days of chasing dead ends.

[m k]

Must the ISA machine be W7, where the collected data goes, to a disk somewhere?

My currently operating solution is a Linux Samba box with two NICs.
It's sitting between old and new parts of the local network and shares a volume.
SMB1 side is completely on its own.
Only data files are moved so contamination possibility is pretty low.

[Algoma]

Typically not VM -> Physical cards, while it could become possible with great effort. It would be far easier to go bare metal, with a physical board that has ISA slots.. (They still exist)

Example:    https://nixsys.com/

You can actually load Dos and Win98 into a modern PC just fine (with limited feature support), provided its not a UEFI bios.

[ve7xen]

I'm not sure about VMware, but in principle with a VT-d capable host machine, it's possible to pass through PCI/PCIe devices directly to the guest as if they were directly attached. However I don't believe it's directly possible for ISA.

Modern machines might offer any ISA ports over a PCI bridge though. You might be able to pass that PCI device through to the guest to get access to the ISA bus devices via the PCI bridge. However, there are typically other legacy bits hanging off this bus, so that might cause problems for the host, and might not work at all as a 'bridge' device is part of the topology, not really a device itself. Maybe worth a try if you have the hardware sitting around.

Probably it's easier to just find compatible real hardware and run it bare metal, though, especially if it's some kind of realtime system.

[jmelson]

Must the ISA machine be W7, where the collected data goes, to a disk somewhere?

My currently operating solution is a Linux Samba box with two NICs.
It's sitting between old and new parts of the local network and shares a volume.
SMB1 side is completely on its own.
Only data files are moved so contamination possibility is pretty low.

No, the boss wants just one computer for the lab, and it has W7 now.  But, if that cannot work, then we could buy a compuer with an ISA slot and guaranteed to at least run Win95/98, and maybe DOS, too.  We have found an affordable machine like that from a specialty outfit.
Jon

[jmelson]

Typically not VM -> Physical cards, while it could become possible with great effort. It would be far easier to go bare metal, with a physical board that has ISA slots.. (They still exist)

Example:    https://nixsys.com/

Yes, we have looked at their units, that is one way we might have to go.

You can actually load Dos and Win98 into a modern PC just fine (with limited feature support), provided its not a UEFI bios.

Hmm, interesting! How about keyboards?  Would it know how to handle a USB keyboard?  We can probably dig up a PS/2 keyboard, though.
The original system did not use a mouse.
Thanks,
Jon

[m k]

W98 is DOS + GUI, it will handle USB if BIOS does it too.

Is the one machine a used space feng shui?
You can get a miniPC and strap it behind the screen.
Get it from leasing returns and you can have a pro spare with same cost.

Linux box can be anything, L(ight)ubuntu will run almost anywhere and is like any Ubuntu.
NICs can be USB dongles and all dongles can have their completely own settings.

One thing, windows network will require two ports, one in and one out, and you just can't secure that with SMB1.

Hmm, maybe your ISA box has so much free space that you can stuff 2 miniPCs, ethernet switch and a KVM switch in it.
Then you can have a production machine, secure server and office workstation all in one case.
Linux box can also be a Raspberry and miniPC might fit in empty drive slot, almost done.

[jmelson]

Well, to wrap it up, after fooling around with VMware and Win 98 guest OS, I dragged in the last ISA machine I had that worked, and booted up the original hard drive with the X ray machine's ISA data acq card, and the whole thing fired right up!  We probably need to find a replacement for that 25 year old computer, though.  And, clone the hard drive.
Jon