On Sat, Aug 17, 2002 at 07:57:59PM -0400, myke predko wrote: > Hi Byron, > > > BTW I see that you've brought the port issue back to the table. It seemed > that > > it was tabled due to nearly complete agreement to what was outlined in > Jason's > > design outline. Serial interface with RS232 and USB converters onboard. > > I asked because I was curious for two reasons. The first was, I wanted to > find out what people *actually* had. > > I don't have a problem with RS-232/USB but you should be aware of some > issues that I've discovered with USB to RS-232 converters. I have a Belkin > USB to 4 RS-232 port converter and it does not work as you would expect - > data is sent in blocks, not truely asynchronously. I gave up on it for my > BASIC87x testing because after typing in a command/statement, I would have > to wait for a second to see the results on Hyperterminal. > > This is not a problem for a COMx port built into the PC. The discussion has always centered around the FTDI FT232 part that Dontronics is distributing. Here's a good overview of the product here: http://www.beyondlogic.org/usb/ftdi.htm While I don't see a quantity price, It looks like it'll be less than $5 each. A small price to pay to get USB compatibility. > > Along with this, the Belkin converter works fine for my PICStart Plus, BUT > it does not work at all for my MPLAB-ICD. I've just gotten a USB to Palm > serial converter that I want to try out as well. > > This is just the results on one system and I'm curious to find out if > anybody else has had similar experiences. Certainly a good question. I guess I'll add that I'm interested in seeing how the FT232 based designs work. > > > The funny thing is that we in fact already have consensus but everyone has > yet > > to respond to the proposal: > > I apologise for not seeing that - I think the volume of emails obscured the > proposal details for me. Thank you for restating them below: > > > * Brenden and Alan were happy with the Designer as long as it had a 2 > socket > > system where the second socket could be controlled via ICD or > traditional > > programming. The second socket would be unpopulated upon initial > delivery. > > It was fine with me because it facilitated having a dual 16F/18F > development > > system for advanced developers without forcing that system upon novices. > > Sorry, are the sockets 18 or 40 pin? 40 pins. The Designer should have the max I/O pins available. The designer can then choose which ones to use for a particular project. > > > * Geert's PICbase in some form can serve as the external final project > target. > > Probably 2 PCB boards, one with just the PICbase, and the other with an > > unpopulated Designer layout, Brenden and Geert pointed out that the > > separation in the two complementary products is based on presentation > and > > marketing, not technology. I haven't heard any dissention to that > proposal. > > Rather than two PCBs, why not a single PCB that is populated two different > ways? Size plain and simple. It takes board space for LCDs and switches and multidigit LEDs and the like. Even unpopulated it'll occupy physical space. Maybe a single PCB where the core board can be easily separated from the I/O area. > > > * The standalong programmer is accomplished by simply having an optional > > board with one or more ZIF sockets that plugs into the manditory ICSP > > interface. The universal programmer is much better covered by Brenden's > > CUMP design, which it much further along than we are anyway. > > > > * The folks who just want a cheap simple programmer, well there are > already a > > bunch of existing Designs and PCBS, including your own El Cheapo. So in > this > > case all we really need to do is nothing at all and let the existing > market > > take care of it. > > Sorry, I seem to have missed this point all together. James made it quite a while ago. > > > That covers all of the major viewpoints that I've seen in the part couple > of > > weeks. > > > > At some point in time soon we'll have to stop discussing and start working > on > > layout. I'm just trying to figure out if we have a design proposal that in > fact > > fits everyone's requirements, then what exactly are we still talking > about? > > > For the past week, I've been trying to come up with a plan for presenting > how to teach somebody how to create PICmicro MCU applications. In the > survey, I'm looking for some good idea about what is the most popular way > people have been learning about our favorite microcontroller. An admiriable goal. That topic was on my goal list when we started this discussion. But it soon became a weapon: If you have educational junk then it'll be a waste once your finished the tutorials... > > When I have the results from the survey, I would like to list what are the > methods people use to learn how to develop applications and come up with a > proposed method for people to follow. I would like to apply this to the > development hardware above and see how well they dovetail together. That's cool. I wish you luck, BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body