---Sean Breheny <shb7@CORNELL.EDU> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I don't think that ANY of the PIC family is capable of mastering a
PCI bus.
> I don't however see why you need to use the PCI bus. What is
happening in
> your stereo that is so fast as to require PCI?

-well,
the DSP card (which is utilizing the ADSP-21061, 32-bit floating point
DSP chip in a quad processor setup)
is on a PCI card, 2nd the driver card for the LCD screen is also PCI...
so, i could have spent a year or two building these, but why? theyre
available, "off-the-shelf"
3rd i am building a card (PCI) to control some tubes...ie. grid and
plate voltage)
so, im building all this on a passive backplane...meaning there is no
support architecture built onto the mainboard, it must all reside on
the cpu card...so i was thinking the simplicity of the PIC might be
the way to go here, there are chips made by scenix that are in the
range of 33-100mhz

 It may be possible to slow
> down the PCI to the point where a PIC can handle it, I'm not sure ,

-dont want to cause any latency, there are 20in and 20 outs on the dsp
engine...plus 4 fiber in/outs

 but it
> seems to me to be the wrong approach. Can't you still find an ISA
card that
> performs the functions you need?

-no, otherwise i wouldnt be doing this way

 A PIC should be able to talk to one or a
> few ISA cards.
> Actually, though, I'm not convinced that it is making it easier on
yourself
> to try to use an off-the-shelf PC card in your design. Usually,
people will
> do this with modems becuase it is very hard to find modem chips that
AREN'T
> designed to operate directly from a personal computer bus.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Sean
>

-well, like i said, i could spend years re-inventing the wheel, but id
rather spend time loading up the DSP chips with algorithms to
encode/decode THX, AC-3 (5.1, and 7.1) and prologic, and then either
enable the tubes  at the same time, or maybe two channels, and the dsp
on the other 4, or whatever (gotta build it and see how it sounds)
so, im looking to use either a PIC or otherwise to
A. put text on screen
B. interprit serial data coming from the touch membrane
c. move through the text fields, changing algorithms in    the DSP
chip, etc according to user input
D. obviously control bus arbitration, bus mastering,      etc. which
the user is oblivious to
E. instruct DSP card to receive/transmit through    assigned I/Os and
add effect to the signal, which      one, etc.
um, im sure im leaving some stuff out?...
but its just my rough idea, however i am locked into PCI simply
because i was able to get the graphics card w/ LCD (10.4"), the DSP
card and the touch membrane for free...so? i got to use em, i want to
use them, its all pretty slick, but thats where my question has its
roots, simply put...is the PIC capable?
desade


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