Re: A little more information

[<aah@nofs.navy.mil>]

Bill/Tom's high-speed serial card is a reasonable solution
in that the approach is to take the parallel I/O data at the
Stamp end, convert it to serial for transmission, then convert
back to parallel using a PCI card.  I'd like to know how large
the FIFO is, what kind of handshaking is available, and how
elaborate a PCI interface was made.
  The real solution is to get rid of all copper between the
Mark IV and the host computer.  This means to use fiber and to send
the RS232 over the same link if it is bidirectional.  The RS232 stuff is
slow speed compared to the rest, but you have to break it out
at the Stamp end to make it look like a standard RS232 port plus
parallel port, unless you want major software work on the Stamp as well.
Since I raised my hand to work on the BX24 upgrade, we might
be able to add such support in the fancier chip.
  The PC printer port solution is ok if you use the ECP
protocol, since that can use DMA access and removes the typical
latency problem.  However, ECP protocol usually means additional
software on the Stamp end in order to handle the port negotiation.
Note that all of these solutions means work, which is why I'd
like to see some more effort put into the memory cards first.
Tom, you want to take data, not build another piece of hardware!
Arne