On 9/19/2012 4:12 PM, andy pugh wrote: > On 19 September 2012 19:37, Roland Jollivet <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Considering the near obsoletion of the parallel port, and the latency of >> USB, is it not possible to do CNC control using the SMBus as part of the >> PCI bus? > There are many PCI io options, and ethernet (RTNet) ones on the way. > Besides, the P-Port has been about to disappear for decades, and still > seems to be there. >
I agree, Andy, but it would seem useful to continue discussing the various interfaces that exist today and summarize the discussion on the Wiki, which has a somewhat outdated and incomplete page on the subject. Serial and PS/2 ports, if they still exist, are not viable choices. USB appears to be out, although I suppose USB3 has to be looked at if only to be sure it still doesn't fit the timing model. Parallel ports are getting harder to find on motherboards...one has to do due diligence to pick out a new board (wouldn't it be nice if someone had a web service that scrapped motherboard info from various vendor sites and allowed filtering on *any* such characteristic?). Intel is playing a fan dance; sometimes you see a parallel port on a newly announced board, whether brought out to a rear connector or not, sometimes you don't. Many of the other vendors just implement Intel reference designs in slightly different configurations. In the same way that the parallel port has been slowly disappearing we have PCI slots slowly disappearing with the possibility that only PCIe will remain. I don't know enough about the PCIe characteristics. As a wild hair, I've often wondered if one of the multiple SATA controllers that appear on most x86 boards could be pressed into service, but I don't know enough about the SATA characteristics. I wish real-time ethernet solutions weren't still "on the way." I got pretty enthusiastic about RTnet several years ago but I quickly realized fancy footwork was required at both ends of the communications. I could easily envision communicating motherboard-to-motherboard but communicating motherboard-to-(drive /or pulse generator) wasn't so obvious. I suppose this would be another "opportunity" for me to learn how to use FPGAs:-) Just my 2cents worth. Regards, Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
