Yesterday I attended a one-day introduction to the dsPICs. Very
interesting, if Microchip can realy produce these chips, without
siginificant bugs, and for a price that is not too high (maybe twice the
price of a compareable 18F?) I think they will be very popular.

There was actual silicon to play with. One thing I tried was the 'do'
instruction, and it worked as documented, even when the end of the do
loop was at a lower address than the start!

A techie stated that Microchip is working on MPEG audio decoder
software. Now that would be a nice niche application! But note that the
DSP-part of the chip is based on 16-bit integers, not on 32 bits like
most DSPs I know. Does someone have any idea what impact that will have,
like a lower signal-to-noise ratio?

Microchip has a new C compiler for these chips. It was decribed as
'GNU-based', yet uChip plans to sell the compiler for some $800. IMHO
that is a contradiction, if the GNU license realy applies they will sell
only one! Funny: the documentation for the compiler had the GNU open
documentation license in an appendix, but the normal Microchip copyright
at the first page, and no note that the GDL applies.

The programming specifications were not available yet, but I got the
impression that they will be very similar to the 18F's in this respect.
Another funny note: the SCL and SDA roles (default RB6/RB7) can be
assigned to three other pairs of pins by changing the fuses. So if you
solder the chip and hardwire the connections between the pins and the
ICSP connector, and then configure another set of pins.....

And yes, I do plan to update Wisp628/XWisp to program these parts. And
no, I don't plan to update Jal for these parts.

Wouter van Ooijen

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Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products

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