Has anyone used one of these devices in an ARCNET network? Yes, arcnet is old but I hear it is making a comeback and you get a free 8 track of Bee Gees when you order the hardware. Anyway, GE Medical used arcnet within most of their older medical equipment which is still around. I've used a USB22 device from Contemporary Controls and created Windows based software for communicating to the system. One of my projects is to take this Windows based software and put it into a microcontroller. At the moment my plan is to use the 18F4680 in part because it has UART and CAN. The arcnet controller is a COM20020i and the network driver is an HYC9088 for coax. I have the schematics for the GE system which can be used as a reference design. I also found a reference design online, but it was a Heathkit/Zenith board. Based upon a quick review, it seems that the pic will interface using an 8 bit data bus and either a multiplexed address bus or a separate 3 bit address bus. Set some registers, then read and write the data. The data packets I need to communicate are fairly simple. Let me know if anyone has any experience with such networks.
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