Re: Controling Holiday Lights

[sylvan butler <ZsdbUse1+noZs_0610@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:56:52 GMT, Si Ballenger <shb*NO*SPAM*@comporium.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:24:48 -0600, sylvan butler
><ZsdbUse1+noZs_0610@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>Anybody have a source for cheap PCI parallel port cards (e.g. four
>>parallel ports on one card)?
>
> The below board might be better than parallel ports.
>
> http://www.futurlec.com/RS232DevBoard.shtml

That looks like a nice I/O board.  But I'm skeptical of the speed at
which one could arbitrarily change the bits.  For example, walking-1 or
walking-0 thru the entire set, or invert all or some arbitrary subset
(xor), and other common effect operations.

Something like these (similar to what Marc pointed out) is more likely
to be fast enough:  http://www.futurlec.com/PCI16IO.shtml  or
http://www.futurlec.com/PCI8255.shtml   That actually looks like a nice
card.  Each 8255 is roughly two XT/AT style parallel ports so if it is
designed well, that card might do what I need, and the price isn't too
far out either.  Too bad Futurelec doesn't put detailed tech info
online.  There's no way I'd be using Windows!  Of course, for that price
I could build a PIC based solution and not need a PC at all...

sdb
--
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