Andrew Bingham
2014-01-03 02:01:50 UTC
One of the first boards that MITS did for the Altair was a relay board for
controlling industrial processes. In fact, my father used an Altair 8800
with the punch-tape reader to load mix designs and run an asphalt plant for
Pike Industries (http://www.pikeindustries.com/) in the late 1970s. We
talked about that this Christmas and he is going to see if that machine
might be sitting in a warehouse somewhere collecting dust. I've always
found it to be a neat example of a business using an early machine like
that.
As a mechanical engineer one my typical uses for any computer is to
interface it with some moving, shaking, or rotating device.
So, I was thinking it might be interesting to have an ECB card with
isolated inputs and outputs, that could be accessed as an I/O port to turn
devices on and off. There wouldn't be much practical use in using a
homebrew computer to do those tasks vs, say, a Raspberry Pi or Ardiuno, but
I think it could make for some interesting demos driven by homebrew
machines. And it's clearly part of the history.
Looking at the datasheets for the 8255, it seems that this could be
accomplished with 1-2 8255s and a set of appropriately selected relays. Or
perhaps there is an existing card that it could be grafted onto?
Any thoughts?
Andrew
controlling industrial processes. In fact, my father used an Altair 8800
with the punch-tape reader to load mix designs and run an asphalt plant for
Pike Industries (http://www.pikeindustries.com/) in the late 1970s. We
talked about that this Christmas and he is going to see if that machine
might be sitting in a warehouse somewhere collecting dust. I've always
found it to be a neat example of a business using an early machine like
that.
As a mechanical engineer one my typical uses for any computer is to
interface it with some moving, shaking, or rotating device.
So, I was thinking it might be interesting to have an ECB card with
isolated inputs and outputs, that could be accessed as an I/O port to turn
devices on and off. There wouldn't be much practical use in using a
homebrew computer to do those tasks vs, say, a Raspberry Pi or Ardiuno, but
I think it could make for some interesting demos driven by homebrew
machines. And it's clearly part of the history.
Looking at the datasheets for the 8255, it seems that this could be
accomplished with 1-2 8255s and a set of appropriately selected relays. Or
perhaps there is an existing card that it could be grafted onto?
Any thoughts?
Andrew
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