Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 7 Jul 1998 02:56:41 +0200 | From | ralf@uni-kobl ... | Subject | Re: Linux IEEE-488 (GPIB) cards? |
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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
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