Re: Interface. Gauging interest.

Roy,

Let's say you want to sell perhaps 100,000 CNC machines...

Now imagine that these machines are in regular retail dealers,
sitting on shelves, ready to be purchased.

Now imagine reading the box on this 2000 dollar item, and seeing
"works with 486 dos based computer" or "must have ISA slots"...

How many folks do you think will find that a good thing?
Not theoretically, rhetorically or justifiably.
But TRULY, gut feeling. How many?
Imagine watching 100 people walking up to that box and what will be
their response?

Laughter? Dismay? Confusion? Frustration? Sadness? Perhaps a tilt of
the head, eyes looking upwards as they try to imagine where they
might find something old and used suitable for use with this
otherwise compelling item?

NOW...

Imagine the SAME scenario, BUT the box says, "plugs into your USB
port"...

Yeah, no contest. The USB item is going to fly off the shelves
compared to the "486" version...

Ballendo

"And the seasons, they go round and round, and the painted pony goes
up and down... We're captured on the carousel of time..." J Mitchell



--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Roy J. Tellason"
<rtellason@...> wrote:

>
> On Monday 15 May 2006 03:21 pm, Codesuidae wrote:
> > Mariss Freimanis wrote:
> > >> ballendo wrote:
> > >>
> > >> What we truly need is a usb EQUIVALENT of the parallel port.
> > >
> > > That's just not possible for CNC programs that output step and
> > > direction signals from a parallel port. Step pulses have

timing in

> > > the microsecond range.
> >
> > You are of course presuming that microsecond precision is

required.

> > There are plenty of motion control tasks that could be performed

using

> > less precise pulse timing. The availability of a cheap, bit-

bangable

> > USB parallel port would enable control of such tasks from a

wider range

> > of hardware. It doesn't take much imagination to see a variety

of

> > possible configurations and applications for such a device. I

suspect

> > that it's probably more 'neat' than 'useful' though.
> >
> > Applications that require higher performance (of the sort for

which one

> > might be inclined to use a Geckodrive) probably wouldn't be

driven from

> > such a device and likely would justify spending a bit more to

get better

> > hardware.
>
> I for one do NOT understand the focus on USB. Nor do I understand

this stuff

> all seemingly headed toward "needing" the latest and greatest in

terms of

> computer hardware to make it run, which is where the "no ISA

slots" seems to

> come in.
>
> What the heck am I supposed to do with all these 486 boards I have

around

> here, anyway? :-) Seriously, I do believe that they're quite

suited to a

> great many machine control tasks, and maybe I'll even eventually

get around

> to doing so with some of them.