We have Simian up and running with the peripherals on the 32 bit Windows 7. Plan on a good day of speaking softly to the computer to get it going. We were going to use two ASI cards, but it proved easier to use a Digigram PCIexpress card we had in a production computer. The second card is used for Wavecart, which we feed out separately to the board, so the ASI's mixing capabilities were not needed.
On using the Broadcast Tools serial devices with a new Windows 7 computer: There are serial to USB adapters, we use one with the Broadcast Tools 32GPI device we have installed. (More recent versions of this device can connect directly to a USB line). Simian accepts this as a serial device.
The Simian "recommended" GPIO device is the Measurement Computing 24 line device (USB-IO24); This is a little plastic box with a bunch of small screws for your incoming trigger lines. Not very practical. Instead I use a variant of that device:
http://www.mccdaq.com/usb-data-acquisition/USB-DIO24-37.aspx
Which has the advantage of a 37 pin D connector on a circuit board with the device. Add a ribbon cable, breakout board (CIO-Mini37) (both available from measurement computing) and an inexpensive Hammond box for the circuit board and you can make a nice neat setup for wiring into the computer.
As the name indicates, this is only 24 trigger lines in. We have an AC station, with Dial Global AC daytime, Delilah at night. Added the Tom Kent weekend shows. Now we have 3 music shows from three different satellites with three different trigger sets. Total trigger lines needed: 30. So we installed the Broadcast Tools 32 GPI device, which also runs off USB, and will talk to the most recent version of Simian.
My control room "furniture" consists of Lowes kitchen cabinets with a countertop in a "T" shape--console on the island. Air computer is in the bottom of a 36" sink base, one door removed for ventilation. The other door has all the trigger line wiring mounted on the inside going into the Measurement Computing breakout boards, then ribbon cables to the 32GPI. Mass of spaghetti.
Now, for outgoing relay closures, I use a 24 relay board, also from Measurement computing. I bought this some dozen years ago for a Wave Cart, the site at MCCDAQ.com shows it is still available. The USB DIO24 device will drive the relays directly through a 37 wire ribbon cable, Simian controls this through the "relay rack." We use the relays to switch programs, our console's channel off and on switches can be controlled remotely (Auditronics 2500 18 channel). So I have a bank of six faders on the far left reserved for the automated programing (Dial Global/Delilah/Tom Kent/Fox News/WV Metro News/Computer) which can be controlled by Simian. The remaining seven faders are separated by blank inserts, and are the ones used by the board ops for live programing (mostly ball games and remotes).
