Sync networked equipment

[_ZoE_]

I've got equipment on a bench. It's too much for a single PC or Mac to run very well, mostly because of how many interface boards there are and what has to be done with the data in real time, so I've got a Windows box for each. Now, I just need to make them talk over the LAN. I don't know how to do that. I'll bet you do.

In my plan, one box runs the whole show, with each of the node boxes working with its own lab device and taking, crunching and reporting its data, when instructed to do so by the main box.

I've got code to parse and process the output of a spectrum analyzer running on one box, a couple of digital scopes on another, a TIA (time interval analyzer) on another, a PLL/Binarizer on one box and a box to run the robot itself. Of course, it's all asynchronous code, since they're all separate, but if I can synchronize them over the LAN with some simple protocol of my own making, I'll have what I need. Is this making sense?

I hope so. That's why I'm coming to this forum. I just want to send queries, ACKs and NAKs and maybe a small amount of data between my computers over the network. So, what's the best way to go? Can any provide directions to good resources online or code frags? I'll love you for it.

Like I said, I'm good at all the data crunching and heuristics, but I don't know a thing about network protocols, about what's available in VB2008, or anything like that. Everything I read confuses me, frankly. Is it some winsock flavor, or is that dead now? Is it TCP or UDP? Do I need to install any OCX or DLL components to make VB work? I dunno. Help?

[namrekka]

TCP or UDP depends of your equipment. As TCP is for point to point I guess, for this application, you go for TCP. If you use VS2008 its all in the box. Look for examples in this forum.