[time-nuts] Re: Accuracy of a sound card

[Magnus Danielson]

From: Alberto di Bene <dibene at usa.net>
Subject: [time-nuts] Re: Accuracy of a sound card
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 00:45:59 +0200
Message-ID: <430A55A7.4050804 at usa.net>

> David Kirkby wrote:
> 
> > If your PC has an ISA slot, or you have an older PC with an ISA slot,
> > then a GPIB board is not that expensive on eBay. Just save yourself a
> > lot of hassle and get one from National Instruments, as they are
> > better supported than other makes.
> 
> I have an ISA GPIB card collecting dust on a shelf... I just don't have
> a PC with an ISA slot... probably I should find one at a ham swap fest...
> 
> > PCI GPIB cards are current, and so are *much* more expensive.
> 
> I know.... :-(  I checked the NI prices and for such a card they want a
> couple hundreds Euros or more...
> I am wondering... I know of the existence of USB <=> RS232 adaptors. May
> be someone sells also USB <=> GPIB converters ? Nobody knows ?

Hmm... I once had a project in which I grab junk from the lab-bench and started
designing a GPIB module which sat of the parallel port. It would probably have
worked if I was getting the parallel port drivers of the ground, which I wasn't
at that time. It was built around a Z80 PIO and a pair of TTLs for clock etc.

Another project was to use my FPGA development board, again the parallel port
driver stuff ate me up and now the FPGA chip is toast. :P
I do have the GPIB code in VHDL at least, and my plan was to use the EPP style
of parallel port control, which is *really* handy for DIY hardware/firmware
haning of a parallel port.

I have the parallel port driver stuff under sufficient control these days, so
I could bring back those efforts when my backlog of other projects have ceased
to hog my free time, which if no other project comes around would but it 5-10
years away. ;O)

If one gets a GPIB chip, hooking it up and fiddle a little with driver should
not be eternally difficult these days.

Cheers,
Magnus