Is anyone running something like this?  Of course finding a new PC that is 32 bit will be a challenge, but they must be out there.  We've been using refurbished Dells, but the failure rate lately has been high.  Looking at the possibility of using new PC's. 

Just out of curiosity, are the failures you are getting with the refurbished dell's similar or all different ?

Tweakie.

All different, but almost always something on the MB.  I have one with bad USB, one with a bad CD...but it's not the drive and one that won't power up.  That's just this week.  Last week there were two with blown caps on the MB.  Never had a problem with the big towers, just these small form factor desktops.

Thanks for the info.

Tweakie.

Guys here is an interesting thought about Windows and 64 bit mode and the LPT version. We all know it won't work, BUT art created a new driver to be used with the MESA 5i20 card that moves al the timing issues from Windows to the Mesa card. (;-)

Seeing how windows would no longer be in charge of timing issues 64 bit mode may run just fine in mach with that driver combo.

Mesa is also coming out wiht a new PCI card (5i25) and plugin board for stepper/analog servo systems) to replace the LPTports it has a TON of bells and whistles for CNC and is pin compatible with the current LPT port output. So it should be plug and play into most BOBs used today.

DOn't know about the driver for that yet BUT it seems to reason that the mesa driver would drive the new card OR a driver is on the way for it???

Just some intersting thoughts on moving forward with the LPTversions and 64 bit computing. It would sure make setting up NEW computers easier/cheaper

(;-) TP

I had looked at Mesa a while back.  Maybe it's time to revisit that.  We really need a cost effective solution that is not USB.  A PCI card would be great.

The MEsa cards could be the next holy grail. They sure work well with the OTHER controller. They have a programable chip just like the SS but have a lot more onboard features I believe.

The 5i20 has a TON of I/0 all useable by mach with the new driver(;-) and it may free up a BUNCH of overhead for windows by letting the card do the timing.

PCI is hard to beat for reliability and function.

(;-) TP

Beware the downside. ...

   While its nice the mesa does the timing in the 5i20 driver , it cannot do it to the reliability of the normal PP driver.
My original driver is the most stable thing in Windows timing.. the mesa breaks down over 35K and starts losing granularity.
  A new version that does it all needs to be able to buffer the data, it it loaded a few hundred ms worth of data on each interrupt ,
then it woudl work fine, but it must buffer. Only the original driver is stable enough to actually do a step on each interrupt.

  The backside is the mesa inetrrupts Windows to gets its attention, the PP driver interrupts the actual CPU to get ITS attention,
that small difference means the world in terms of wether a pci card needs to buffer or not..

  The current 5i20 driver will work fine, but only up to certain speeds, ( I wouldnt use more than 35K myself, maybe 45K.. ), so the
next card will pretty much have to be done as a buffering card by a plugin, with some simple driver used solely to transfer data
about.. Any new mesa would more resemble an SS than a PP type operation.

  Not neccesarily a killer point, but something for the next mesa developer to take note of. While Ive heard of the newer card,
I havent heard of anyone doing a plugin for it yet.

Art