NOTICE : This is an essay - NOT a problem. If you aren't interested in
reading what happens to real PIC programmers in the real world then DON'T
read any further. Be WARNED.

Second NOTICE : All comments are made in a lighthearted spirit and are not
meant to offend anyone. I take all responsibility for my decisions and
actions despite anything said to the contrary in the essay below. (PS. I
should have become a lawyer!)

Last NOTICE : There are some interesting BITMAPs available which I haven't
attached as this would just FLOOD your mailbox. I can however post some of
them on request.

It was a bright and happy summer day in South Africa. As I closed my office
window I was convinced that everything would go according to plan. I closed
my briefcase and plunged home. I had packed everything. Even the
installation CDs of ALL my software - just in case the laptop got damaged. I
had printouts and backups on stiffies and on the other laptop. Man - I was
prepared !

We rigged the camera, focussed the thing, and ran for the shelter. The first
shot was fired and we got nothing. As I moved the floating toolbar of
PaintShop Pro I saw a little blotch in the bottom right corner and we knew
that we GOT IT. (Even if we were a few milliseconds slow). From this point
on we just made progress. We adjusted the time delays, adjusted the camera's
viewing angle nd just got better and better results. The best part was that
my PIC was behaving properly. Never once did it act up and the delay routine
was so amazingly accurate and STABLE. After running to the camera for the
fifteenth time I was beginning to see the singlemost important flaw in my
design - the inability to ARM the camera from a distance. So I sarted
punching away, repairing the little oversight, whilst running the odd 50m to
and fro every so often in the 40 degree C cloudless sky. But I was smiling -
I knew that this was to be the last.

We got home and I went straight for my recently built (and tested) PIC
programmer, courtesy of a certain gentleman in this group. I plugged the
16c74 in and hit the program button. A slight twitch was the only indication
of alarm when the error box popped up. After all, I knew the thing worked.
But I had a backup plan - my ProMate programmer. Except, I left it 840km
from where I was then.

So the next day, as I ran to and fro between the camera and the bunker to
arm it every 10 minutes or so, I grimly imagined all sorts of dire
eventualaties for the aforementioned gentleman and his programmer. It wasn't
until much later that I realised that it was my own stupidity that had led
me into this situation. So, the evil grin I had affixed on my face turned
into the smile of the village idiot. Idiot.

What's the point ? Take all the installation disks, all the spare PIC
device, the multimeter, all the programmers, extra batteries, extra PC,
extra cables, in fact - just moved your whole workshop when you're
(terrestrialy) going 840km to a place in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere
where there aren't any matter transporters. Especially if the thing you're
trying to take a snapshot of travels quite a bit faster than 1000 meters per
second (no typo there!) and costs a few thousand dollars a shot.

For the technically minded - the camera has an embedded PC with a CCD video
card, behind some complicated lens and shutter trickery, tied to a PIC
microsecond timer. It receives an external trigger, opens the shutter for a
microsecond, and then samples the CCD at a leisurely pace. The result is a
filmless snapshot of the fast-moving object. Tied to the PIC is an LCD and
keypad to adjust time delays and exposure time, as well as managing the
triggering and shuttering. The PIC code fills half a 16c74 (a few lines
short of 2000 lines of source!) The cost of the camera is around $30,000 -
which can be recovered from the cost of the film used in the camera
currently used by the facility in a month!

Merry Christmas.
Jan van der Watt
[i SAW Elvis. He sAt BETween mE anD BigFOOt on THE uFo.]