>Or is this simply just joke ? Not at all, Jan-Erik! Most of my PIC projects fall into one of three catagories: 1. Stuff I could go out and buy for less money and no effort 2. Stuff someone else has already made that I am making for my company for a "me-too" product 3. Actual innovative products that haven't been made before 90% of my work falls into the first two categories. 90% of my hobby projects fall into the first category. I would consider making a scientific calculator to be a very interesting and useful project. Often I take on hobby projects just to keep my skills sharp, when design work gets slow at work (I do a lot of testing for weeks on end). These allow me to keep sharp enough to rapidly develop a lab one-off when my lab need some gizmo that can't be bought off the shelf for any money. How many times have any of us made an LED blinky? I can't count them - that is often the first step in a prototype, it proves that the PIC is all correctly hooked up, the timers are set right, later it gives me a visual heartbeat watchdog on the PIC's health, and sometimes in the middle of a project when a PIC refuses to work at all the whole thing grinds to a halt and I go back to a BLinky to see if the basics are working right. I put a Blinky on my bicycle helmet to keep from getting killed in traffic, which I could have gone out and bought for less money (mine is better though) Yet the Blinky is considered the "merit badge" of PIC projects, pretty good for a boy scout but not worth much otherwise. -- Lawrence Lile Senior Project Engineer Toastmaster, Inc. Division of Salton, Inc. 573-446-5661 voice 573-446-5676 fax Jan-Erik Soderholm Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 04/05/2004 11:27 AM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [PIC:] Which pic to use? - Calculator Project > Hi, > I'm making a really powerful scientific calculator and I > need to know which kind of PIC to use. I must be missing something here... I can go downtown and by me a "powerful scientific calculator" for *less* then a blank high-range PIC18... What are you doing ? And what are the TI's, Casio's, whatever missing ? Or is this simply just joke ? Jan-Erik. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads