[widar-wg] CPCC Battleshort Fixture

[Kevin Ryan]

Hi Brent,

On Jun 23, 2011, at 11:05 PM, Brent Carlson wrote:
> I think it would be better to have a cold standby, fully loaded and tested
> CPCC c/w NI6509 boards, which gets powered up and tested say, when the
> smoke tests are done, on a regular basis.

This appears to be the consensus; Joe and James may order a couple more SuperLogic computers.  I believe we will need more NI boards to fully populate one of them.  It would be real handy if the standby could be close enough to the RPMIB cables to plug right in.

On Jun 23, 2011, at 11:07 PM, Brent Carlson wrote:
> Could another commodity COTS PC be used?  That was the intent of using
> COTS equipment in the first place.  I'm pretty sure NI still sells the
> 6509 board.

Yes, it would likely require driver-level s/w changes.  I just checked, NI still carries the PCI version of the 6509 for $299 each. 

I was holding my breath when CMP was running its part of the array because of the no longer available boards providing the gnarly interface to the old VLA Serial Line Controller (thanks to Steve Blachman, we did buy one set of spares before they became extinct).

One fully populated cold-standby unit plus a couple bare units in their boxes in James' office should be good (it's cheap insurance at their price). 

Kevin