lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1998]   [Jul]   [7]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [more markup]  [less markup]  [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
DateTue, 7 Jul 1998 02:56:41 +0200
From ralf@uni-kobl ...
SubjectRe: Linux IEEE-488 (GPIB) cards?
On Mon, Jul 06, 1998 at 08:39:32PM -0300, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:

> In message <35A15BC9.4D2ED043@tampabay.rr.com>, Lance Dillon writes:
> +-----
> | maybe its just a faulty memory here, but i think i remember the
> | commodore 64 having that same interface (IEEE-488)?
> +--->8
> 
> You remember correctly.  In fact, every CBM machine except the Amiga used 
> some form of it.  (I *think* the Amiga didn't use it, but I could well be 
> wrong on that point.)
> 
> | am i correctly remembering this? (its been a while since i did any
> | programming on one)....if so, why is it coming back? or, perhaps better,
> | why did it ever leave?
> +--->8
> 
> It never left; but CBM was the only company to design computers around it.  
> Otherwise, it was used pretty much exclusively for laboratory test 
> equipment.  The reason being that, like SCSI, HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-488 requires 
> "intelligent" peripherals which are more expensive than dumb ones that you 
> can stick on a ST-506 or IDE or other interface that makes the main CPU do 
> all the work.  (Commodore used a cheapened-down version of IEEE-488; it 
> wasn't quite compatible with the real thing, and had various problems due to 
> the cheapening-down.)

There was some more professional equipment like some of the CBM machine
series or the SFD1001 floppy (Over a meg capacity, wheee ...) which used
the real IEEE-488 stuff.  Parallel IEEE-488 was also available as a module
for the C64.

Back for the serial variant of IEEE-488 - since I'm hacking Linux I'm
tempted to brew some interface to allow usage of a 1541 disk drive with
an ordinary parallel port or similar.  Of course also driver software
is required.  Something like that has already been published in the
German ``Amiga Magazin'', issue 5/1988, if memory serves right.  Is
something like that already available?

(If people are wondering why I would want something like that - the old
floppies are dying, they want to be backuped onto something more reliable
than floppies.)

  Ralf

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:43    [from the cache]
©2003-2008