Python routines for driving a Microwire serial port? like on AD Converter

[Peter Hansen]

(We have not tried that specifically.)  At the moment, I can't recall
whether the protocol for Microwire involves any timing-related
restrictions.  That is, are there *any* hard real-time considerations,
where the master must respond (either by updating its output or by
reading the current input) within a certain amount of time or the result
will be wrong?

If there are any hard real-time considerations, it is unlikely you could
reliably use NT (with or without Python, but Python just makes the
problem worse) for this sort of application, even if a few retries were
allowed.

On the other hand, if the slave is able to wait indefinitely for the
host at any point (and since Microwire is, if I recall, a three-wire
protocol, I believe that's the case), then you could definitely do it. 
You might require a minor bit of glue hardware externally, depending on
your particular application, and you would definitely have to learn how
to control the parallel port from Python.  (Another NT-gotcha: that
probably requires a DLL since it means interfacing with hardware
directly.  Either that or some methods in the Python win32 stuff...)

rob wrote:
> 
> Has anyone ever tried using Python on NT for driving a Microwire serial
> port?  Its used on many IC's for implementing digital control. e.g. AD
> converters.  I would think that perhaps the pc parallel port could be
> used in some way to implement this.  I have seen proprietary
> schemes/boxes for this but have no idea how they work.
> 
> Rob.