Yeah, you are right. You will not find many vendors interested in helping to integrate. I used to write device drivers for the OpenBSD operating system. And one thing I found out is that it's like pulling your own teeth without a mirror trying to get vendors to help you. The only way a vendor will help is if they see Mach as a way of increasing their sales. Like Vital Systems. Smart company. But the world is not full of smart companies. Some start out smart and then dumb waaaaaay down.
So, in the end, you have to do it. Or someone does. The right combination of need and know how has to come together. As stated, most vendors will not supply you with anything. If you want it to work, you have to buy the product yourself and start hacking. Or someone that is interested in getting some hardware to work may contact you and send you a board.
Over the years, I have bought thousands of dollars worth of hardware so that I could provide support for it. Why? It's pretty darned fun. A big jig-saw puzzle, if you will. And if I think it may be useful to me, even better. Other times, people have sent me hardware and paid me handsomely to integrate it.
BTW, the Elexol PlugIn is almost finished. It will support both the Ethernet and USB modules in any combination up to 4 modules. It turns out that the USB modules can be accessed via direct USB or over a virtual COM port. The direct USB method is fast, so that is what I used. The Elexol has 24 I/O pins per board. Not as much as the Futurlec board. But it does offer remote I/O. Running one USB or Ethernet cable from the computer to the control cabinet is sometimes easier than running multiples of wires.
However, the Futurlec board has the bang for the buck going for it. So I'd like to support it.
Steve