On Wed, Aug 07, 2002 at 08:51:53AM -0600, shawnmulligan wrote: > > For Shawn and the others that have offered to support this without a > profit, > > I know I speak for all of the list when I say the gesture is appreciated, > > but really think about what you are saying. You have inventory costs, > NREs, > > equipment costs, insurance, salaries, rent as well as lost opportunity > time, > > all of which have to be paid for somehow. > > This whole idea has grown so much further than the idea that Sean and I had > last weekend. The original idea included the PCB and parts for a programmer, > a couple of well documented starter programs with included hex files and > perhaps a roadmap to the information available on the PICList and the > Internet. I think that Sean's (I'm so glad that you two spell your names differently! ;-) clarification of what can be done in his facility expanded the scope. The rules change when a completely assembled and packaged product can be done. > > The idea was to develop a small/inexpensive package that would overcome that > first hurdle for the beginner: getting that first PIC programmed -- and > further, to offer a programmer and documentation that would move the > beginner from the 16F84 to the 'F628 or '877. Once we have the project descriptions together the part differences are moot. There will be no move from the 16F84. The 16F84 will simply be out of the equation. > > The project that has evolved probably won't see reality as it's too much for > any one to commit to, but the original idea could. Sean has offered to > produce the board and I and many others have offered to distribute it. Costs > are minimal, benefits are large. But I think it still may fall short of the real goal. Successful programming of a chip is simply the first step. Flashing an LED is simply another small step. The problem is twofold: each step has pitfalls that hamper success and just a simple programmer doesn't offer enough facilities to handle most of the common tasks that occur in common projects. Our true two goals: painlessly getting beginning users started and providing enough infrastructure on the platform to provide long term usage, are both acheivable with only a moderate amount of hardware. And since Sean is planning on shipping completely assembled units, there's no complexity issues in terms of assembly for the end user. So we can add more and get even more benefit. Take a read of my response to Sean about the PICLIST Designer (PLD). Now let me give you a couple of snapshots: Day 1: The Designer arrives! You pull the sleek box out of it wrapping along with a serial port cable, a wallwart, and a CD. You plug in the wallwart and connect the serial cable to the Designer and your PC. Pop in the CD and you're ready to rock! The CD directs you to the welcome and installation page (which BTW is already done!) and then proceeds to the first project page: LED control. The project gives an overview of the PIC microcontroller family, describing the memory model, registers, ports, and pinout. It then shows the first schematic showing 2 LEDs tied to a couple of PIC I/O pins via current limiting resistors. Next comes the annontated boilerplate code that will turn one LED on and the other LED off. Next the page directs you to fire up the designer software and load the code into it. A couple of clicks it's assembled and ready to go. Download and run. Success! the Red LED is on and the yellow one is off. Finally there is an exercise where you are directed to change the code so that the red LED is off and the yellow on. It's only been 45 minutes and you're already cooking! Day 43 (late beginner): You've been exploring the features of the PLD and now feel pretty comfortable with the LCD, LEDs, swiches and the like. You've prototyped a project with the designer where a lamp will turn on for 90 seconds when someone opens a door. Well of course you don't want to tie up the PLD with that simple task even though it was great for prototyping it using the onboard equipment and breadboard. With the limited I/O required it's clear from the documentation that a 16F628 would be perfect for the job. Fortunately the PLD has a full PIC programmer in it. So you drop a blank 628 on the other end of the breadboard from your current project and wire a connector to the ICSP port of the PLD. You run a couple of quick tests to ensure that the 628 is programming OK. Make a couple of minor changes to code you've been developing on the PLD, because it uses a PIC16F877A as its core, and dump your project into the 628 and test it. It works fine. So you solder up a protoboard with the project and transfer the parts. Another project in the can. Day 206 (advanced): Your 2 chip controller is taxing the limits of the PLD. The onboard chip is driving all of the I/O for the project while the chip on the prototype board is running all the heavy computations. It's intense trying to keep track of which code is loaded into the PLD and which is loaded into the compengine. There's a race condition in the communications protocol between the chips. You sure a glad that you didn't have to waste time putting together a prototype board just to get this project off the ground. Because if you did it would still be sitting on your ever increasing project to do list. But the PLD is helping to get that list pared down... I hope that you get the idea of the Designer now. It's a platform for facilitating experimentation and project design. It's greatest strength is that is removes all the drudgery required just to get started on a project. It facilitates the process of design and implmentation at all levels an not just a "here's how to blink an LED." for beginners. A bootloadable programmer that has much of its I/O packaged onboard and provides expandable interfaces can be an extremly valuable tool for novices and experts alike. BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.