I propose having the timed loop accept one or more timing source(s). The loop would wakeup and execute if any of the chosen timing sources tic'd. If multiple sources tic'd, then the 1st timing source would execute first.
This would ease the creation of more complex timing schemes on the host. For example, application needs to wake up every 50ms and whenever a timing source tics. Both wake up events need to operate on the same data and neither should happen at the same time. Typically this means you write two timed loops and a lot of handshaking overhead... or a single while loop with a lot of timing structure built into it and probably encompassed by a timed sequence structure so you get priority and CPU assignment.
All of this would be much easier if a single timed loop could handle multiple timing sources. All of your data would be in the same shift register(s) and you don't have to write any handshaking code to prevent simultaneous execution.
Obviously the GUI for this would be somewhat complex, but for the programmatic inputs you can simply turn most of them into arrays.
Stephen B
