Where do we go from here, was [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: A crazy idea

I'm wondering when the time will come that the machine control side of the
house will realize that the office automation side of the house is no longer
going to produce machines that have the attributes required for automation
and that they'll have to start developing their own hardware.

Already, we have "black boxes" that take a serial output from a Windows
based machine to assure that the timing necessary for fast, synchronized,
moves can be met. How long until someone expands that black box to include
the controller software (G-Code interpreter, that is) and uses the PC as a
"terminal" to send high level commands to the box, and then until someone
integrates the video into the box to eliminate the PC.

Whether it's I/O mapped or memory mapped, you still can do I/O at the basic
chip level.

-- Jerry

|Yes, old PC's with serial and parallel ports will be
|around for a while, but eventually the supply of old
|equipment dries up. When was the last time you ran
|across a machine with an 8" floppy drive? a 5-1/4"
|floppy drive?