Sorry, I haven't taken the time to actually calculate the speed you need,
but you wouldn't waste your time learning PIC assembly.  The variety of PIC
available all use pretty much the same instruction sets.

As for the 10Mhz PIC16F84, I wouldn't think that you will get enough
"horsepower" to meet the challenge.  But like I said, there are a great
variety of PIC chips and one of them will meet your needs.  Try one with
built in ADC.

John Mullan


-----Original Message-----
From: pic microcontroller discussion list
[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Dr. Imre Bartfai
Sent: Friday, December 03, 1999 1:57 AM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: interfacing pic16f84 to ADC and DAC


On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Sarang S. Dalal wrote:

> My question is whether a 10 MHz PIC16F84 would be fast enough for my
> application.
>
> I need to control an ADC and DAC with two separate microcontrollers.
> The ADC is a 4-channel 12-bit MAX1246, while the DAC is a 4-channel
> 12-bit MAX537.  My application is transmitting three channels of
> analog data over a single wireless digital link.  The digital link
> has a maximum speed of 19200 bps.
>
> The ADC needs to be sent an 8-bit configuration byte before the
> microcontroller receives each 12-bit conversion.  The DAC needs to be
> sent a 16-bit word, containing 8 bits of configuration and 12 bits of
> data.
>
> Ideally, I would like to have the ADC hooked up to one
> microcontroller, which would put together the 16-bit word for the DAC
> and send it over the digital link.  Another microcontroller would
> receive the data and pass it on to the DAC.
>
> I tried using my lab's BASIC Stamp II -- I was able to communicate
> with the converters just fine, but the BASIC interpreter simply
> couldn't process commands fast enough to yield a decent sampling
> rate.  (I need at least 400 Hz total, and would like 1200 Hz.)
>
> My lab also has a 10 MHz PIC16F84.  Would this microcontroller be
> sufficient?  I'm new to assembly language, so if I'm going to invest
> the time into learning, I want to be sure that it will work!  Also,
> any pointers to code for getting started would be appreciated...
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Sarang Dalal
>
>