Re: EMC on a 386 and a remote TkEMC under Win98?

[Jon Elson <jmelson-at-artsci.wustl.edu>]

Scott Stephens wrote:

> Can I and how do I:
>
> Run TkEMC, and a backplotter, under Win98?
> I suppose the Tcl backplotter would need significant modification.

No, it is designed to run under Linux.  There is no real-time support
for Win98.

> Use an old 386/486 to run EMCMOT, EMCIO, and EMCTASK?
> Will Red Hat Linux 5.2  (kernal) 2.0.36 and RT patch release9J.tgz  bear it?
> Will speed be improved with a remote TkEMC?

There are problems setting up the shared memory region that acts as the
communications mechanism between the real-time and user-mode sections
of EMC on 486 machines.  The 486 has a different memory organization
than the Pentium.  I don't believe a 386 would be up to the task at
all.  I don't know whether a remote TkEMC setup will releive the CPU of
load, or increase it.  Anyway, the user interface is not a big load.

> Can I transfer small executables from the build to a tiny 100MB disk on the
> 386 or 486?

Sounds easy.  All you would need is network support, EMC and the kernel.

> What linux components can I discard if I just want a motion controller?

Help libraries, object libraries, editors, debuggers, compilers, etc. can all
be left out, which reduces system size considerably.

Jon