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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

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