Sometimes it pays to be a dinosaur.
One of the AET students at Drexel sent me an email asking about a serial add-in card for an older CNC milling machine. The manufacturer’s site listed a used one that was available for $250.
Custom boards for CNC machines and the like can get expensive — so that in and of itself wasn’t too surprising. The student mentioned that the card went into a motherboard, which had two slots available; he wanted to know if a less-expensive card would do the trick.
Here’s the card shown on their site. $250 MSRP, used. (Click for larger.)
Yes — it’s a garden-variety ISA “Super I/O” card (and not even the VESA Local Bus version, at that.) These things were obsolete fifteen years ago — people have a hard time giving them away for free at yard sales. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.
I found a very similar one in a box in the "museum" at work; I’m sure it will work fine.
