PCI and I/O

In thinking about the issue of dissapearing parallel ports
and ISA bus slots, I had an idea that might be worthwhile.

What about building a card around a PCI bridge chip, (perhaps one of
those from PLX technology) incorporating the encoder reading chips
from the DRO board and an 8255 or something similar for parallel I/O.
It might also be possible to add a programmable interrupt generator
and maybe a step-pulse generator/multiplier.

Another possibility would be to use an intel i960RP processor, which
incorporates a PCI bridge and could handle tasks like step generation
with simply velocity profiles and such - of course as a much more
complicated project.

My real point is that at the kind of low volumes we talk about, it
might be economical to use off-the-shelf parts to avoid the licensing
fees for a programmable-logic PCI interface function.

The USB option may be worthwhile, if the linux driver situation gets
worked out.

Chris

--
Christopher C. Stratton, stratton@...
Instrument Maker, Horn Player & Engineer
22 Adrian Street, Somerville, MA 02143
http://www.mdc.net/~stratton
NEW PHONE NUMBER: (617) 628-1062 home, 253-2606 MIT