Re[1]: emc on microway alpha pc?

["Terry L. Ridder" <terrylr-at-blauedonau.com>]

hello;

this would be the test box for the bridgeport
boss conversion. the bridgeports all have steppers.
i am going to drive the bridgeport with two
parallel ports. i need to order some of the least
expensive isa cards. if one happens to get blown
i would rather lose an inexpensive isa card then
a motherboard. could still lose the motheboard if
the isa parallel port card is hit hard enough, but
the risk is less.

in talking with matt shaver concerning intel hardware
limiting the ability of emc to drive steppers currently
i was thinking of trying the alpha since the hardware
is a little different and should not be the limiting
factor. matt, sent me an excel spreadsheet which showed
the limits under intel hardware.

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Jon Elson wrote:

"Terry L. Ridder" wrote:

terrylr> hello;
terrylr>
terrylr> i already have linux-2.2.17 patch with rtlinux-2.2
terrylr> running on my microway 500mhz alpha. it appears to
terrylr> be stable. has anyone attempted to run emc on an
terrylr> alpha? are there any areas to be aware of?
terrylr>
terrylr> linux distribution is redhat-6.2 alpha, with changes
terrylr> made by me.

jon> 
jon> Right off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason
jon> it shouldn't work, but there may well be one.
jon> I may desire to use a machine instruction in the code
jon> I use to drive my parallel port connected encoder counters
jon> and DACs.  There is an x86 instruction that will read
jon> (and another to write) a series of bytes to/from a
jon> single I/O port.  This would speed up the transfer
jon> of data from the encoder counter and to the DAC.
jon> I will have to test this, and if the speed improvement
jon> is not substantial, then keep to the portable C code.
jon> If the way the EPP/ECP parallel port works the same
jon> on that machine, then there shouldn't be much problem.
jon> 
jon> Will you be running servos or steppers?  If you will use
jon> the Servo-to-Go card, their diagnostics, etc. are for
jon> PCs under DOS, only.  That won't run, except possibly
jon> under an emulator.
jon> 
jon> Jon
jon> 

-- 
Terry L. Ridder
Blue Danube Software (Blaue Donau Software)
"We do not write software, we compose it."

digging deep, i feel my conscience burn
i need to know who and what i am
this hunger jolts me from complacency
rocks me, makes me meet myself
----kendall payne---closer to myself---