On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 02:56:50PM -0500, Dale Botkin wrote:
> Now I really do understand why there are so many programmers, programmer
> kits, and starter/experimenter kits on the market.  Everyone's got their
> own opinion on the perfect starter setup, and they're mostly if not all
> correct -- for someone.
>
> I wish I had something to add, but I simply don't.  I see problems at
> every turn.  Parallel port?  None on many new PCs, none on Macs, often
> only one and it's used by a printer.

This is compounded by the fact that while there are standards, there are
some variations.

>  Serial port?  Vanishing breed.

I never realized that. I did realize that its original uses are pretty much
been usurped by other ports. Modems have gone internal and been replaced
by high speed networking. Mice have gone PS2 and USB. But every machine I've
seen has still had at least one serial port.

> USB?  You just left out all NT users, and anyone with older hardware.

It's the wave of the present and near future though. It's the interface
that will probably survive into the next round.

> Bootloader?  Great, but now the newbie has to ALSO wrap his head around
> how that works and how his program has to change to accomodate it.

Nope. The newbie is presented the abstraction of clicking a button to download
the code into the chip. The mechanism doesn't need to be explained initially.
Bootloader (and programmer) explanation occurs at the point where the user
wants to tranfer their project out of the Designer. But that won't be for
several chapters in.

As for program changes, they are not necessary. For example Wouter's Wloader
bootloader makes the process completely transparent. If the program has code
in the reset vector, Wloader will automagically store it in a different
location to prevent overwriting of its reset vector. Then when the code is
executed, the transferred instructions are run before returning control to
the beginning of the non-transferred code. The upshot is that no code changes
are required as opposed to the straight program code. Therefore the novice
user need not be told anything about the process initially.

BAJ

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