A lot of the DOS USB support is now working thanks
to the efforts of Georg Potthast
http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/dosusb.htm

The current hang up is getting the USB Hytek Automation
data acq board to work with Power Basic and
the DOS USB. Somebody is working on that at
Hytek Automation. That will expand the market
for their products. DOS is essential as it is
the only widely available OS that allows direct
hardware access in anything near real time.
I said 30 years ago "What we really need is a
32 bit DOS". Bill Gates did not listen :)

Waiting in the wings is a somewhat more expensive
approach and that is the Mesa Anything I/O card
with 72 I/O bits. They already have a DOS driver.

http://www.mesanet.com/

This of course bypasses the USB and goes directly
to PCI I/O parallel addresses. These are widely used
in NC Machine tool computer upgrades. I happen
to already have one for my NC mill.

http://www.rotaryeng.net/Nc-Mill-How-To.html

I would have to do a bit of hardware design
and development but I would get 8 channels of 8
bit A to D in 40 microseconds per channel using
a low cost National ADC0848. Not as good as the
HyTek board but acceptable for the EFI system.

http://www.rotaryeng.net/simple-cheap-555.html

The future is very bright for this approach
to real time hardware control as PC boards
will do nothing but get smaller and cheaper.

To cut programming time and programmer skill
level I think a high level BASIC programming
language is essential and that is where Power
Basic comes into play.

Paul Lamar