Mark,
Everything you said is true. Any idea what such a card would cost -- you'd
probably be able to sell a few hundred so I guess someone could probably
develop and manufacture them for 10-15 K and make a minimal profit.
Just talking out loud,
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Sirota <msirota@isc.upenn.edu>
To: Steve Ashcraft <ashcraft2@home.com>
Cc: <autox@autox.team.net>; John Carriere <jacircts@mich.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: Autocross Timing/Scoring Software
> Steve Ashcraft wrote:
> > I'd love to hear some opinions about how DOS handles interrupts and if
> > there is a problem there that is unacceptable.
>
> The business of how MS-DOS or MS-Windows handles interrupts can be
> completely obviated by using a separate, intelligent card to do the
> timing. I'm sure such things exist, but I unfortunately cannot provide
> any pointers at this time. Perhaps someone else can?
>
> I wonder if John Carriere or any of the other standalone timer folks
> might be interested in developing such a card specifically for
> autocross timing applications. That would be a good way to hedge
> against the trend towards computer-based timing systems.
>
> In any case, since any decent software will be written either for MS-DOS
> or Win32 these days (sigh), it would be rash to rely on the PC or the
> OS to do the timing. You must use an external timer, or one provided on
> a card.
>
> The dedicated hardware can read the signals from the timer heads in
> real time, and mark them with a timestamp, completely independent of
> the PC's timer system or the OS's interrupt handler.
>
> Mark
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