| ??? 03/16/10 07:56 Read: times |
#174184 - Thta's what you say ... Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Andy Peters said:
Richard Erlacher said:
The PC once was a viable platform for general development, both hardware and software. Goodness knows, I've used 'em plenty of times. Today, however, the PC is, at most, a platform for development of Windows software. PC's I've recently purchased have had, in one case, only two PCI connectors. Two issues here: a) You haven't looked hard enough. You might need to look into industrial computing platforms instead of off-the-shelf Dell machines which are more suited to standard office use. (Most non-engineers don't care about how many slots are inside a computer.) b) For those that need expansion slots, PCI Express has really taken over. Better bandwidth, better signal integrity than old parallel PCI, and the best thing: software compatible (the software doesn't know that a card is in a PCIe or PCI slot). Not even LINUX can figure out what the display adapter is. That's not really a Linux problem. Rather, unless the manufacturer of the graphics card provides a driver, then you can't use the card at anything other than as a standard VGA device. And convincing hardware vendors to provide driver support for non-Windows operating systems has always been a problem. Now, what do you consider to be a UART? Surely not the ones that were once used in PC's? Philips once made a pretty nice 24-pin skinny-dip part that was a UART with built-in baud rate generator. I miss it! Maybe if more people were continuing to use it, instead of newer/better/faster devices, then it would still be in production. The weak-kneed things built into 805x's cover many slow app's, and, in some cases, are even capable of considerable speed in isochronous mode, but can't manage synchronous protocol. The ones, e.g. the SiLabs parts, capable of considerable async rates, are capable of quasi-synchronous transmission/reception, but not in the standard way. After all, the Mode0 "UART" isn't a USRT. Then use an FPGA and design EXACTLY what YOU want. Consider what that costs, Andy! I dunno, it seems as if there's a ton of devices that communicate over SPI, which is a synchronous protocol and in many cases goes pretty damn fast. Really? So where would you find an SPI USRT that can process HDLC? Please show us where we can get printers that will work with 805x's and at what price they're available. I've never had a need to print from my microcontroller, so I can't help you there. It's a good thing the guys who designed those ticket printers you see at the theaters were able to do it. The ones I last saw used 805x and a few support chips. I don't care what the PC's do. I want to know what can be done to make it, once again, into a useful tool for development. As I've noted in this thread, the PC IS a very useful development tool. You've stated your case, but haven't provided any supporting facts. -a I'm surely glad I still have running DOS-based PC's. They work as PC's once did, and there's really nothing that can take their place. RE |
