USB function generators?

Must be a trend. I've see quite a few front yards here where wood has been delivered. Big unsplit logs. Looks like a lot of work, they must be more than 3 cords each.

Cheers

Well, it's _hugely_ less expensive than heating with propane or electric heat pumps.

Yabbut... isn't the cost of a motherboard with ISA alone well above the cost of a more contermporary (no ISA slots) motherboard plus a new USB- or PCI-based GPIB controller?

Not really. I had recently posted some links here for John Larkin, with boards that had more than half a dozen ISA slots. Not very expensive. For a super-tight budget there's China but I don't know this company, it was just a quick search result:

Ah, nice. I agree, that's not really any more expensive than a more contempoary motherboard... good to know; I've learned my "something new" for the day..

Well, if you were here an hour from now you could learn how to make Rouladen (a German dish, but modified) on the barbie, in the rain :-)

My wife is heading back from visiting her grandmother (who just had a kneecap replaced) & assorted other relatives in Bend, bringing back some of said relative's chicken alfredo for dinner... should be interesting, in a couple of hours here...!

(I would have gone as well except that I came down with a cold the middle of last week and we figured that spreading it to various elderly folks in the recovery ward isn't exactly a very thoughtful thing to do... :-) )

---Joel

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I think it is overpriced and underpowered.

It's even less expensive living where so much heat isn't needed. It was 75F here today and sunny. We really need some of your rain, though. I planted a cherry tree in the front yard a few weeks ago (wind got the roots of a small maple a year ago).

Overpriced? I've seen it on sale as low as $200. What alternatives are there, other than a big vintage box?

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Drivers become history as the OS progresses. Or are you using your drivers from Windows for Workgroups while on Win 7? ;-)

I still stick with the claim that the only black box that will live forever (or forever enough) is one using ethernet. I've got three perfectly usable ethernet appliances, one of which is at least 8 years old (forever in computer time). It's only 10mbps, but it is a linux bases print server that really don't need upgrading. Well, maybe when I go 10Gbps, I'll replace it. The other boxes are only 100mbps, but fine for the purpose. You put all the slow stuff on one router to act as a funnel to keep them from slowing down the fast ethernet.

I'd be willing to bet a fair amount on anything with an RS-232 serial port too...

Close: Until about 2005 I used a Logitech ScanMan on an NT machine. Only seasoned computer users will remember it. It's the one on the right in the picture:

AFAIR WfW wasn't even out when I bought this and the software came on floppies. Luckily I had made sure that the NT box could handle 5-1/4" ... phzzzzzt ... done ... worked. Until its wheels fell off.

Or, as Joel wrote, RS232. That bus is also forever and that's also what the ScanMan device above utilized.

If you are not afraid of outdated software, I bought this on eBay when the price was 175 USD:

Software could be improved. But the USB is isolated (external 12V required). For that price I imagine it can be used on plenty occasions before I switch to an unsupported OS.

Cheers, Joop

If this return to more normal winter weather presents itself next time you might better consider 6 or 7 cords. Or a lot more insulation.

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Underpowered because of the power limitations of USB. Overpriced because they did not solve the galvanic isolation problem or the power problem with a wall wart or a cord brick (both of which could have been easily done at that price point).

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Well, yes and no regarding 232. First, they dropped the serial ports from most notebooks. They still have 232 on desktops, and of course you can add serial cards. The caveat is the device using 232 has to "agree" to handshake control, either XON/XOFF or the physical handshake lines. Many devices like GPSs and scanners do not have sufficient buffering to handle the "choppy" 232 modern PCs produce. In the dark ages (DOS), the program owned the port. You could even peek and poke. In more modern operating systems, the program has less control over the port and some programs that worked under win98 won't work under news OSs.

The same goes for proprietary protocols over ethernet. If the software doesn't run on a new OS then you have the same problem.

You just need to get lucky to buy the right equipment. About 14 years ago I bought a Galep3 programmer (parallel port) from Conitec. They have developed new versions but their software is still backwards compatible.

Maybe I am lucky but all my RS232 works, including gear from the mid-80's. The only issue is with very few non-standard devices that rob power from the serial bus and can't live on the 6V or so that laptops provide.