Re: FPGA for PCI based servo control board

["D.F.S." <dfs-at-xmission.com>]

> 
> 
> Why not to use a SBC/cheap computer, networked to main EMC machine?
> It already comes with ISA bus. FPGA board can be plugged in into it.
> Then all the real time functionallity from Linux can be unloaded into it as
> well,
> according to Paul, it is trivial. Then networking communication doesn't have
> to be in hard real time - this is solved as well. I 'm not in the same
> league as you, guys, but this appear to
> be an easy and a straight forward way.

This comes back to my contention we need a standard "Interface Protocol"

We need a clean place to split the "Work of reading G code, determining where
and how to move Iron and the actual Move the Iron Part.

If we had a protocol this would be a very viable option as would ALL the
other implementation options mentioned which are optimal for wildly different
situations from 300 Khz to laser interference level accuracy and speed to the
geek in the basement happier with a junker 386 running and doing a perfectly
acceptable job of bit-banging 96 TTL level outputs hacked to its Bus.

Marc