| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1443.1 | The Logical Company (in UK: RGB Trinet) | BBPBV1::WALLACE | PC: tera$ fashion accessory | Wed Jun 04 1997 13:45 | 19 |
| You don't mean DVR11. You mean some flavour of DR11 (there were
several, all different flavours of parallel interface). There were a
number of different DRV11s on Qbus.
From memory, I think the two numbers you mention come from The Logical
Company, who in the UK are represented by RGB Trinet in Reading (who
are a Digital Networks VAR of some kind). I don't actually know anyone
who's used these...
What box do you want this to go in ? How fast does it need to be ? What
OS ? Who will provide drivers ? Etc?
I'd love to help more but Logica aren't a TOEM account... :-)
There's a DR11 notesfile on PROXY::DR11 if you need historical
reference info for what they have at the moment.
regards
john
|
| 1443.2 | Do they really need a DR11? | BBPBV1::WALLACE | PC: tera$ fashion accessory | Wed Jun 04 1997 14:08 | 25 |
| If this is a not particularly demanding application in terms of
thruput, Logica would be well advised to look at something like
Industrial Computer Source's multi-8255 parallel interface board (model
PCDIO**). Industrial Computer Source (UK) are on 01243 533900.
The Logical Company didn't do drivers last time I looked and a DR11
driver for someone who doesn't know DR11s or Windows NT would not be a
fun task (and if they did *really* know DR11s and Windows NT you
wouldn't be asking here would you :-)
Since they will be re-writing the application anyway they've enough
software to worry about already... The 8255 chip is about as simple as
it gets, from a programmer's point of view. They will need a driver,
though, as NT doesn't have the backdoors for driverless hardware access
that were provided on both RSX and VMS (and even many UNIXes).
If you want something with an off-the-shelf NT/x86 driver, start with
National Instruments (01635 523545) and something like their AT-DIO32F.
Beware though that (1) this is not a direct DR11 replacement
electrically (2) it suffers from "Swiss penknife" syndrome. NI also do
a PCDIO card which is similar to the 8255 one from ICS, and has drivers
available.
regards
john
|
| 1443.3 | | NNTPD::"[email protected]" | Ian Godfrey | Wed Jun 04 1997 14:42 | 17 |
| I have been involved in a similar type of investigation on behalf of another
customer. They wish to do exactly the same type of operation but don't wish to
re-write the code, merely to avoid the hardware problems that many PDP's are
experiencing.
We have been looking at a product called Osprey provided by Strobedata. This
is basically a PDP on a "PC" expansion card but can support a Unibus or Qbus
backplane for those difficult to support cards, the rest being emulated by the
"PC" hardware.
At present Osprey is PC based but it will be available shortly (September
1997) in an NT/Alpha form.
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
|
| 1443.4 | Thanks | CHEFS::GALLAGHER_D | | Wed Jun 04 1997 15:10 | 8 |
| Thanks very much for all of your most helpful replies.
I believe that I can point them in the right direction in order to help
themselves now.
regards
David GALLAGHER
|
| 1443.5 | I'll do it!! | WOTVAX::rasmodem26.reo.dec.com::watson | OK, whats todays long term strategy? | Wed Jun 04 1997 15:44 | 12 |
|
> The application is ERNIE and the DVR11 currently provides a connection
> to the Random Number Generator.
Hey, tell them I'll knock them up a new random number generator,
I won't even charge them.
Now where'd I put those premium bonds... ;-)
-- Rob
|
| 1443.6 | | COMICS::CORNEJ | What's an Architect? | Wed Jun 04 1997 22:58 | 4 |
| As long as all the random numbers start 2ZK I'll be happy :-)
Jc
|
| 1443.7 | | FORTY2::TATHAM | Nick Tatham @REO | Thu Jun 05 1997 09:12 | 6 |
| Can't you use the standard PC parallel printer port for this?
nick
|
| 1443.8 | 8255 = Dumb device. | BROUGH::DAVIES | Hype is a 4 letter word ! | Thu Jun 05 1997 14:05 | 21 |
| The DR*11 series of Unibus/Qbus/BI Bus cards are rated at about 1Mb/sec.
An 8255 based card cannot do anything like this. It has no silo and other
goodies to make it pass data at high speed. Advantech and other companies
sell borards & software drivers etc for low speed data acquisition.
The problem with the ERNIE application is that it seems to take years for any
replacement H/W & S/W package to get rolled out. If I recall the announcement
of the last major H/W upgrade, was that the CPU's used were already several
years past their EOL date.
My suggestion would be to go with the PDP in a PC solution.
8255 drivers on NT are very simple to put together and there are examples in the
NT DDK kit. the 8255 H/W is dumb. you have to setup one 8bit port for
output, and another for input. It is not bi-directional like a PC printer port.
Stephen Davies
|