Rafael Skodlar wrote: > You seem to like low cost stuff as quoted later but I doubt that you'll > find that together with Ethernet/CNC controllers. > > NXP, Atmel and a bunch of other outfits have $12 - 15 chips that have an ARM7 CPU and a 10/100 Ethernet port on one chip, with additional I/O. I make a line of parallel port-controlled motion interfaces. The driver currently (with a big thanks to John Kasunich!) almost builds a packet and interrogates the board, and then sends back a packet of commands. The architecture is half way there to doing this like you would over networking hardware. I think I could make a $50 "converter" that goes between the ethernet and the existing parallel port to control one or more of my boards. Later I could get rid of the parallel interface and go with just the Ethernet. > > > How do they coexist with parallel port or Mesa card for example? > The various devices are SEPARATE hardware, and therefore can be isolated. If all the SATA ports on a motherboard are on ONE chip, it may be impossible to isolate them. SATA is not intended for network-like communications, and is meant for very short runs. Ethernet has the VERY important feature of full electrical isolation, which should be quite helpful in making reliable systems.
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