IO interface.

Hi,

There has been some discussion about IO interface, - parport, USB,
SCSI, IDE, etc.

I just came to think of something, what about the IEEE 488 bus. I
remember that you had this bus on plotters, measuring devices, and
such. (HP-IB) This one could address about 30 attached devices. It
should be possible to find some ISA cards, and some logic chips,
so you could make your own IO device. It has a 8bit data bus, and
should be fast enough.

I have never used this bus, so I am asking if any of you have
something to say about it. In my opinion, this might be something
to look into. It is often very good to use a standard way to do
things, and in this case, I think there might be several things
you could find on the surplus marked, that you could make use of.
All from recorders, to power supplies.

Maybe we could add stepper interface, servo, DRO and all kind of
stuff. Just hook it into the cable, and you are very close to a
plug & play solution.

Please come with comments on this, because I think this may be a
very nice solution. ( if it works )

//ARNE