On Sep 26, 2004, at 8:22 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
Sounds good to me. I'd have done it with a microcontroller...probably an MCS-51 variant if I wanted to access it via a serial port, or an eZ80 if I wanted it to be network-accessible. But it sounds like you want to do more stuff than I would have thought of...ssh, gcc, etc...You're doing all that work coming up with the ultimate homebrew control system, then you're gonna use a PC to control it? DJ, DJ...Sigh. ;)Yeah, it's a hack. With a PC, I can put Linux on it and manage it remotely - web server, ssh, gcc, etc. I hope to someday put a microcontroller on it (sh, arm, fpga, whatever) instead but I wanted a minimum system that would fit in the existing box.
You, sir, are a geek of the very highest order. :-) If memory serves, I first used DJGPP in something like 1991. I brought it into work one day (TRW Space & Defense at the time) and everyone in my department got hooked on it...we were doing missile plume simulations and analysis that ate LOTS of memory, and the larger ones could only be run on our VAX...which, while it was great and (for that time) screaming fast, it was terribly overloaded. DJGPP enabled us to do some of the larger analyses on the PeeCees which solved quite a few problems for us.Besides, I've been designing and prototyping PCs since the 286 was new (and asm-programming them since the 8080/8088 days). I designed and built my own motherboards when I worked for Data General, so I've earned the right to use them for my home-brew projects ;-)