Ad:

Visual Basic 4 / 5 / 6 Discussion Thread
Unsolved
Views: 8705

Page 1
2
Next

You are currently viewing page 1 of this multi-page discussion thread

Dec 16th, 2004

Need real time in XP

Expand Post »

I am a lab engineer for a university.

Up until recently, we have been using MS-DOS 6.22 and Quickbasic 4.5 to control our experiments and record our data. We did not change to Windows because Windows would not let us control our processes on a millisecond level. This series of experiments is supposed to run over a 20 year period. Any large changes threaten the continuity of the data collected.

But recently, we have had some problems:

- Many of our 486 and Pentium I systems have failed, and new computers are not compatible with our hardware.
- We just lost our last DOS compatible printer due to inability to buy ink cartridges for it.
- The company which made our hardware for the experiment has gone out of business (they said at the time that it was because their equipment could not be used on any modern computer).

We are now 15 years into this study, and are seriously wondering if we will be able to complete it. Our needs are as follows:

- We need to be able to collect data continuously over 4 seconds per trial, with eight 12-bit data points being read each millisecond. The data are saved to an array. The hardware we have controls the timing of the collection cycle, raising a bit every millisecond.

- The program must notice within one millisecond to any abrupt change in one particular data item out of the eight being read. It must then time off an interval selected by the user in exact milliseconds, and then activate an output bit to turn on a function on the hardware.

- We store the data to disk after the trial ends.

- The hardware is ISA bus.

Attempts to do this on any Windows system, or even a DOS system which has not been rebooted since running Windows 3.1, resulted in the timing values being way off.

Questions:

1. Are there ways to get accurate software timing on a Windows machine? Windows I/O totally messes up all attempts to do this, forcing all times to be multiples of 55 ms and missing much of the data.

2. Is there a way to make new printers run on DOS machines? We have been able to get new machines to run MS-DOS, but they won't print.

3. Is there a way to use our existing hardware on a new machine? We couldn't get it to run on a Pentium II which has ISA slots, because the bus timing was too fast for the card.

Similar Threads

mIRC or Real Time Message Boards...in Linux in Linux Applications and Software
Real-time OS in Computer Science
Problem with real-time app reading from serial port in ASP.NET
My yahoo client. Not receiving data in real time :(( Just need a bit of advice in Perl
Need really real time in Computer Science

Real-tiner

Reputation Points: 11

Solved Threads: 8

Posting Whiz in Training

Offline

207 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Dec 18th, 2004

Re: Need real time in XP

I dont know if it will help, or if this function has any overhead, but the standard c/c++ function GetTickCount() will return a Long int of milliseconds.

The program

Visual Basic 4 / 5 / 6 Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;
 
long the_time = 0;
long last_time = 0;
long frame_time = 0;
 
void frame(void) 
{
    this_time = GetTickCount();
    frame_time = the_time - last_time; // this is time elapsed since last call
    if(frame_time == 1) // one millisecond
    {
        // perform processing of data
    }
    last_time = the_time; 
    return;
}
 
int main(void)
{  
    for(;;) { frame(); }
    return 0;
}
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;

long the_time = 0;
long last_time = 0;
long frame_time = 0;

void frame(void) 
{
    this_time = GetTickCount();
    frame_time = the_time - last_time; // this is time elapsed since last call
    if(frame_time == 1) // one millisecond
    {
        // perform processing of data
    }
    last_time = the_time; 
    return;
}

int main(void)
{  
    for(;;) { frame(); }
    return 0;
}

gets the time every time the frame is called. If you print the time you find that on most recent systems the processing is enough that i have found even on my 2.5GHz celeron that from that loop i could get quite a few calls before one millisecond was up. The IF statement effectively is called every millisecond, on paper anyway. I could not garuntee the accuracy or any overheads. It might be worth turning this code over to the computer science forum as i believe they might be able to help with timing and accuracy of code and computing a lot more

1o0oBhP

Reputation Points: 16

Solved Threads: 6

Posting Pro in Training

Offline

445 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Dec 18th, 2004

Re: Need real time in XP

BTW this compiles on win32 and above....

1o0oBhP

Reputation Points: 16

Solved Threads: 6

Posting Pro in Training

Offline

445 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Dec 18th, 2004

Re: Need real time in XP

SORRY!!! it was late at night i forgot this was the Basic/VB forum... I think that to get that accuracy you might need to go to a lower level language anyway....

1o0oBhP

Reputation Points: 16

Solved Threads: 6

Posting Pro in Training

Offline

445 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Jan 3rd, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

The main problem is that Windows takes control of the computer away from the program for periods of time longer than a millisecond each time the 55 millisecond jiffy timer goes off. With DOS, the interruption was far less than a millisecond.

We have tried the following, and they do not work:

- We tried a Unix based system using C+, and it changed the order of the operations to suit its own sense of efficiency, collecting and storing the data before outputting the signal to start the equipment.

- We tried a system of timestamping, which was said to be able to compensate for the times of the events. But it is impossible to put a time stamp on the real world to tell it that the control signal should have occurred 23 milliseconds before the computer actually output it. This ruined the data from an analysis standpoint.

- Any system of data collection taken through the Windows system restricted our control points to be 55 milliseconds apart, and produced a random delay at the beginning, as the first real-world event was event was asynchronous to the first 55 millisecond jiffy. If we needed a read-modify-write operation, the control points had to be 110 milliseconds apart.

- We were successful with a DMA data collector card, but we were not able to scan the data on the fly as we need to do.

- We tried e-Prime, and found that it introduced delays of up to 10 milliseconds if the real-world event occurred during the Windows jiffy.

Someone told me it was possible to use the old QuickBasic 4.5 with Windows, and it could take control away from the Windows timing. Is this true?

I was able to boot a Windows XP computer from a DOS 6.22 floppy in the A: drive, but I couldn't use the hard disk with it (it's not FAT). The printers would not work either. And I can't take the DOS floppy out to put in a data disk, or the program crashes if it makes certain DOS calls.

Real-tiner

Reputation Points: 11

Solved Threads: 8

Posting Whiz in Training

Offline

207 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Jan 4th, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

I would therefore recommend passing the problem to the universities engineering dept. You will need specialised timing electronics made for the nature of te research! Something that has an accurate internal oscillating frequency and can store some data. Then write a driver to get the data off of the hardware into windows. As long as you buffer so much in the hardware the overhead from windows will not matter!

1o0oBhP

Reputation Points: 16

Solved Threads: 6

Posting Pro in Training

Offline

445 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Jan 4th, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

Quote ...

I would therefore recommend passing the problem to the universities engineering dept. You will need specialised timing electronics made for the nature of te research!

Several problems with that:

- This university has no engineering department (other than the physical plant department, which takes care of the buildings and pipes). It's a liberal arts and sciences college.

- I already built a timing machine myself. The problem is that the scientist involved wants to use the computer to randomly select timings, rather than turn knobs on a control panel.

- It would take a computer to do the calculation he wants to do to determine one of the settings. That puts it back in the computer's flawed timing, since the answer would still not be available to the hardware until 55 milliseconds later.

- The scientist wants to make frequent changes in the experiment.

I need a way to do at least some of these:

- Run DOS on an XP machine in such a way that I can store data to the XP hard drive.

- Use a current printer and disk drive on a DOS machine (no drivers available).

- Run QuickBasic under XP without being stopped by Windows timing or fouling up the hard disk.

- Connect and use our current ISA slot data collection system to an XP machine

Real-tiner

Reputation Points: 11

Solved Threads: 8

Posting Whiz in Training

Offline

207 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Mar 27th, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

The only thing I can help you with there is with the printing.

Currently you can still buy some printers that are MSDOS compatible. But be carefull. You need a printer that has a parallel printer socket, not just a USB one (I think DOS can only output to a parallel printer socket). Also you need to make sure the box says it is DOS compatible. When you install the printer driver there should be an option displayed to enable MSDOS printing. You then make sure Windows XP is set to send the info to LPT1 and connect via a parrallel printer cable.

MrConfused

Reputation Points: 10

Solved Threads: 0

Light Poster

Offline

32 posts
since Mar 2005

Permalink

Mar 29th, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

or why dont you just install xp on a fat drive?

Acidburn

Reputation Points: 12

Solved Threads: 5

Posting Pro

Offline

510 posts
since Dec 2004

Permalink

Apr 6th, 2005

Re: Need real time in XP

Is it not possible just to replace the old 486 or Pentium hardware? That stuff is SUPER cheap now. Even if the university wouldn't authorize funds for it, you could probably dumpster dive and find the base equipment or systems you need.

The way I look at it, why change what you've got too much? I'd just keep trying to run with the old hardware. If you're really dead-set on changing, have you thought about some kind of embedded solution, or a PC running QNX, an actual RTOS?

alc6379

Team Colleague

Reputation Points: 186

Solved Threads: 147

Cookie... That's it

Offline

2,519 posts
since Dec 2003

Page 1
2
Next

This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.

Previous Thread in Visual Basic 4 / 5 / 6 Forum Timeline: Access and VB

Next Thread in Visual Basic 4 / 5 / 6 Forum Timeline: Systra Icons

DaniWeb Message

Cancel Changes

User Name
Password