Koyo PLC Ethernet modules

[John Quintana <jpq@guava.dnd.aps.anl.gov>]

For those of you using Koyo PLC's. --
I called PLC Direct on Friday and they told me that they are now
shipping the H2-ENET and H4-ENET modules for the 205 and 405
PLC systems.  These are ethernet communication modules for each
family of PLC's.  Price is $299 per module.  They also have the
Ethernet Board Controller modules for the 205 (I didn't ask about
the 405 series), so you can easily extend your PLC system onto
a 10 Base T ethernet or talk to your existing PLC's via ethernet.
These modules are produced by Host Engineering and I have ported
their communications code over to Linux.  I
believe that there is still a big-endian/little-endian issue still for
other machines, but if you are running on a PC type system, you
can easily talk to your PLC's.  

We don't run EPICs on our beamline at the APS, so we really have no
interest in coming up with an EPICS driver for these systems.  However,
if anyone wants to take a crack at this, I can send you the source code
and try to find out if anyone has dealt with the endian issues.  It seems
to me that it would make a nice addition to the EPICS arsenal since PLC
Direct's products are very cost effective and can really extend the notion
of distributed control.   

---
John Quintana                              Phone:630-252-0223
Northwestern University                    FAX: 630-252-0226      
DND-CAT                                    email: jpq@nwu.edu
APS/ANL Building 432/A003
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439