> Basically what I am thinking is to determine the incoming bit period based
> on the first (known) received byte, and using this bit period value for
> the next 1/2 second.  Would a scheme like this be viable?

Absolutely!

You have an error budget of at least a couple percent in typical 8N1 async
comms.

Since you are setting your bit time relative to received bit time, you will
effectively get that entire budget for your end of the link (including your
error in estimating the received bit time, of course).

Unless your Vcc is bouncing up and down, or you are zapping the chip with a
freeze spray, chances are the RC osc will be quite stable over short
(subsecond) intervals.

Just be sure you do a good job of estimating the bit time from the received
data. A couple of useful tricks:

1: Measure from a rising edge to another rising edge, or from a falling edge
to another falling edge. This eliminates any asymmetry in response to the
two edges as an error source.

2: Measure more than a single bit time, then divide by the appropriate
value. This gives you a longer 'baseline' for your computation.

For example, if you use a character like B'10000010' you can time from the
1->0 to the next 1->0 and then divide by 6 to get the actual bit time.

Since dividing by 6 is a bit painful you could use B'10001000' and then
divide by four (just a couple of shifts).

Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems
(contract development of high performance, high function, low-level
software)

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