As I've mentioned here before, Parallax seems to be completely unwilling to
provide technical information on the SX-Key interface protocol, despite having
claimed otherwise last fall at the Embedded Systems Conference.  Evidently
the money of people who use operating systems other than Windows 95 isn't good
enough for them.

Fortunately for you, the reader, this isn't just another message of my
complaints.  Someone has actually done something about it.

Loren Blaney has written SxProg, a program allowing the use of the SX-Key from
a DOS command prompt.  This makes it possible to use the SX-Key from batch
files, Makefiles, and the like, and is also very convenient if you need to
program many parts.

SxProg is available from my web site:
        http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/scenix/sxprog/

Given how many people on the list seemed enthusiastic about the Scenix part
before it was released, I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion
of it on the list lately.  Is anyone out there using it, or are Rich, Loren,
and I the only ones?

I was initially somewhat skeptical of the "virtual peripheral" concept that
Scenix and Parallax are promoting, and I'm still dubious of some of the code
size and CPU utilization claims from the Electronics Design article.  However,
having actually used the thing for a while, I've become convinced that the
virtual peripheral concept is actually quite useful.  The biggest drawback
I've found so far is trying to use two virtual peripherals that each want
a different interrupt rate.  If one rate is a simple multiple of the other,
it works fine.  Otherwise, it can be very tricky.

Cheers,
Eric