Re: Insteon open source WAS: Something else

[Joerg <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Marc,

>
>>That begs the question: When will they ever learn? Many a fine bus or
>>protocol has quietly gone lalaland because of elitist treatment. Either
>>too restrictive or too expensive, or both. Remember GPIB?
>
>
> Yes, and HPIB (aka IEEE-488) continued and continues to quietly make money
> for HP, NI and others for years. I expect that the fact that it did not
> become a commodity was and is quite to their liking. Ditto for HPIL (although
> HP-specific). Factoid: Used, current model GPIB USB interfaces sell for ca
> $300 on eBay.
>

Sure they do but there is no market volume to speak of. I vividly
remember a discussion at Tektronix when nearly all attending users
(myself included) voiced something loud and clear: Get us a regular
run-of-the-mills method for data output and not GPIB. Then they did that.

BTW, in the days when I had to use GPIB there were ways to get around HP
and NI's high prices. I forgot the name of the company (Plug-In or
something similar, out of Taiwan) that sold PC-mount HPIB interfaces.
For the slower grade which was fine for everything I did we paid around
$60. In the early 90's that wasn't much more than we had to pay for a
regular multi-IO card. So the cost issue could be circumvented but I
really had it when one of those garden hose type GPIB cables slipped out
of the socket a bit fast and flung my favorite coffee mug to the ground.
Coffee and shards all over the lab. Luckily I drink mine sugarless.

Nowadays you can buy a GPIB converter kit or assembled board from
someone in eastern Europe. It has a uC (MSP430, IIRC) on board, resides
in the connector shell and converts to USB. That gets rid of the bulky
cables. But we don't use GPIB in the lab anymore.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com