Re: FPGA for PCI based servo control board

[Jon Elson <elson-at-pico-systems.com>]

alex wrote:

>OK, now I know!
>Will ask him again.
>Jon, I would like very much knowing your opinion on a subject of unloading
>real time loops to a small / cheap networked PC.
>Can it be done in DOS?
>
Yes, probably.  What you'd really want is to start the program from DOS, but
then have it take over the whole machine, reprogram the timer chip, etc.
You'd have to write your own real time scheduler, but for only a couple of
tasks, that is not hard.

>Can it be done it RTLinux in a sense if it will be enough horsepower for
>16 bit 386 machine to run several loops simultaneously?
>
Well, if you do it in integer arithmetic, a 386 might be good enough. 
 You have to understand
that a 386 is several HUNDRED times slower than modern Pentium processors.

Jon