Re: EMC compatible computers

["alex" <telecomt-at-tht.net>]

John,
I quite agree with your philosophical thoughts.
It seems to me that big guys want to take control of the PCs away from
people
and make people only a brainless consumers of games and office apps.
I also agree that modern PCs are quite capable of running EMC application
without
problems, the bottleneck is an expandability - simply very dificult to
interface with
an outside world.
In this respect Jon Elson did a great job by introducing a  parallel port
mother board with
different modules, including i/o and others.
By using a "normal " DOS based PC with an ISA bus this can be greatly
simplified,
by not relying on a bi-directional parallel port anymore. The unit I have in
mind is
TS-3300 from Technologic Systems. Its $200, has ethernet, sram and ISA bus,
DOS too.
This unit can be part of the expansion mother board with different modules,
similar
to what Jon did. It will be quite easy to write am application for, also
fast and reliable.
If somebody will want to build 1000 units - its predictable supply sources.
If somebody needs more power - another unit can be added unil the
requirement
is fulfilled.
Best regards, Alex