[snipped a lot of details...]

hehe looks like I talk too much :)

Thanks Jan-Erik & John W. for your speedy replies, I haven't lookied at
serial LCDs but thought as I had a few 84A's in my box use those and save a
few quid. It looks like the slave is working ok here, the "language" is
fairly simple. and on a serial port, it takes just 2 pins on the 877A.
the limit on the 877 is the I/O, but perhaps I should look to expanding that
another way. I haven't looked at the 18's yet, but perhaps I should also
look there.

Again,
thanks for your replies, I will keep looking (and lurking here).
Regards
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: pic microcontroller discussion list
[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Jan-Erik Soderholm
Sent: 16 February 2004 23:23
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [PIC:] Not about Olin, but a PIC question :)


Jim Franklin wrote :

> As I am trying to shoehorn the project into an 877A,...

What's limiting ? Speed, flash, RAM, I/O ?

> would  you guys out
> there recommend using a second PIC (F84A or something - i'm
> using this as it's in my parts box) as a slave to the "master" 877A.

Depends on the answer to Q1 above, but probably no.

>
> I have an LCD display on the slave communicating via serial
> to the master PIC.

There are also "serial-LCD's" that perhaps could do a fair deal of
the job of the "slave-PIC".

[snipped a lot of details...]

But easiest seems to simply use a more capable PIC from the
18-family.

Jan-Erik.

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads