Taking the red pill...
- Posted by katsmeow Jun 12, 2021
- 2757 views
Over the last couple of years, there's been an explosion of inexpensive devices on ebay(etc) to convert ethernet, usb, RS-422, RS-232, RS-485, etc back and forth. Previously these devices were large, slow, and expensive, now they are dongles or small cable warts, fast, and as cheap as $10, from hundreds of sellers. For examples:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/131833025902
https://www.ebay.com/itm/353453817112
It should also be possible to interface tiny computers, such as the cheapest Raspi or Arduino, on lan or usb to allow bytes to flow in and out of the computer.
The ebay(etc) descriptions don't say much about how to actually operate the devices, how to command the device to send one bit or one byte or 64k bytes to the computer, or how the software on the computer is to detect this action, or initiate a transaction.
Has anyone built anything like this, using OE (etc) to access this data? From the user's perspective, did your device resemble a hard drive, a static ram, an array bits on pins, a smart RS-422 port? Did it have analog inputs? Did it have command pins like a PIO chip, or software command ports? Did OE(etc) access each pin separately, or were global packets of data glommed? The protocols will be different tween the ethernet and usb, there's significant pros and cons for each system, what did you use and why?
Can you share or sell your solution?
Kat
PS: "red pill" is 1999 Matrix movie reference, referring to the real world outside the computer.
