Re: Arrrrrrrgggg!

[Fraser Farrell <fraser@trilobytes.com.au>]

Chris,

You wrote,
> I can look into it.  I'd really be afraid of not being able to
> keep all nine bits in the cable in sync.  4Mhz is a fast rate
> to push down a long parallel cable.  My guess is that going over
> 1Mhz will not be easy

As an example of the "reliably send several MB to something on a cable" 
problem:


Laser printer manufacturers don't encourage the use of cable longer than 
five metres - an admonition I've learned to respect. If the printer has 
to be further away, buy an Ethernet card for it. The cost of the card 
will be paid for within a year by all the garbage pages that won't be 
printed; and all the print jobs that won't need to be transmitted 
multiple times.

You can also buy Ethernet-to-parallel boxes (often sold as "printer 
servers") and printer extender kits. In my trade catalogues the latter 
look like RS-422-to-parallel converters. Either of these possibilites 
allows bidirectional data flow; and would let you position the Mark IV 
well away from its controlling computer.


cheers,
Fraser Farrell