Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: parallel port finally obsolete?

scyvt wrote:

> Having not been so closely following developments in the last year or so, I was wondering if such a black box had been perfected, and if motion control software had been adapted to it. From the responses so far, I have to conclude that the answer current is: still in development, by no means standardized; and furthermore not everybody sees the need - despite the disappearance of parallel ports from new computers.
>

Well, not sure what you are asking here. I have been making a stepper
controller
since 2002, with an FPGA and parallel port communications.
So, it has been out there for a whole decade! It does not more the entire
motion control task out the the external device, just the job of putting out
step pulses. So, it needs the computer to be in "real time" control with
it to watch position and keep feeding it new velocities. Moving everything
out to the external hardware sounds good at first, but it puts a layer
between
the motion control and the user. That means delay, and possibly an
interruption
of the communication.

What I DO NOT UNDERSTAND at all is why people are constantly trying
to find a "better way", when this problem has been solved. Mach works
quite well for a number of folks, and to my way of thinking LinuxCNC solves
the problem completely, professionally, and still leaves great
flexibility to
adapt the system for specific applications.

So, I have been making three different "black boxes", all dating back to
2002
to 2004, for step/direction drives, analog servos and digital servos.
It is not
"still under development" but a production product. Mesa uses a fairly
similar scheme but a different packaging arrangement, and they have
also been making these for a number of years.

Jon