The MESA 7I73 is a remote pendant controller with keypad input, LCD controller, encoder, digital and analog inputs and digital outputs. The 7I73 is designed for fast real time PC based control systems. The 7I73 communicates with the host with a robust RS-422 link with a 100 ft maximum link distance. Standard CAT5 cables are used for wiring convenience. The 7I73 is supported by Mesa's low cost FPGA cards which present a simple parallel register interface to the host, with all protocol details handled by the smart interface. One FPGA card can support up to 32 external devices and up to 3072 control points while still maintaining a 10 KHz service rate for all points. This high service rate allows much better control feel than USB, wireless, or other non-real time pendants. The keypad input can support up to 64 keys. Up to 4 quadrature encoder inputs are provided for MPG use. 8 analog inputs, 16 digital inputs and 10 digital outputs are available as well as a support for 2/4 line 20/40 character LCD. The 7I73 is suited for high performance industrial automation and machine tool applications.