Mark

Depending on the application  and the environment it will be in it sounds
that direct connection would do your job but by using a UART RS232/485 the
signal over distances will have a lot better signal to noise ratio
especially RS485 because of the differential pair.

Jason
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark A Winters <markwinters@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 1998 11:49
Subject: Re: PIC net (BASIC question)


>My apologies for the newbie question -- my background is more in software
>than hardware.
>
>With regards to this topic, I have a basic question: When is it necessary
to
>go to something like RS-485, rather than just connecting PICs directly?
>
>I have an application in which I need to connect a master PIC to three
>slaves, each about 15 feet away. The communication needs between the PICs
is
>very simple -- under 300 baud would be fine (I plan on bit-banging the
>protocol).
>
>Would direct pin-to-pin connection of the PICs work in this case, or do I
>need to go to something more sophisticated?
>
>Thanks in advance for any advice...
>
>Mark
>
>