Now that I have gotten some sleep let me attempt to better describe what it is that I am thinking about. I need a way to connect a motor (stepper most likely) and rotary encoder to a computer. I am planning on controlling the motor with some real-time software written under RTAI (http://www.aero.polimi.it/~rtai/). Originally I was thinking PCI was the only way to go for deterministic (aka real-time) performance. I found that thanks to the RTNet project (http://rtnet.sf.net) I can do hard real-time communication over Ethernet. Ethernet connectivity is interesting to me because it removes a lot of complexity that PCI tends to bring along. This would also allow me to control my motor's) from the Apple PowerBook I am going be purchasing soon. Now as far as my interface is concerned I know that I am going to need the Ethernet core, decoder/counter for the quadrature encoder, the logic required for the motor interface and some other simple I/O for limit switches and such. What I am not sure about is how to connect the two. Will I need a soft micro like the OpenRISC core? If I need a micro I'm not sure what I am going to do about a embedded UDP/IP stack (http://www.sics.se/~adam/lwip/ maybe). I would really like to hear your thoughts on the best way to accomplish a FPGA based, Ethernet connected motor/feedback interface capable of being controlled in real-time (low latency/jitter). Again, thanks for your time. --adam -----Original Message----- From: Hunt, Adam Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 2:24 AM To: OpenCores List (E-mail) Subject: [oc] (no subject) I have been thinking about a project where I would need an interface for a bunch digital I/O for a PC running Linux with some real-time extensions. I actually need a bit more then simple I/O but it is of no consequence. I was originally thinking of using a Memec Insight 2S200 PCI board but it occurred to me that I might possibly be able to use Ethernet. If I used the OC Ethernet core would I need to include some sort of [soft] processor (i.e. the OpenRISC processor) as a glue between the network interface and my I/O, quadrature decoders and associated logic? Thanks for your time. --adam _______________________________________________ http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores