Yep, now that you remind me there was that, and USB "on the go" that they
said they were working on.  I don't know what that means for a timeline.

Also, I talked with one of the soft modem guys about a ppp/tcp stack to go
with the new modem and he mentioned that they had a demo/example "in the
works".

I think my most fun class was the dsp sound lab.  Probably wasn't the most
informative of them all, but it was cool anyway.  I think with the pricing
they are doing for the 30f2010 (at least in the 10K qty range) they should
sell the crud out of them.  Anyway, they are more well thought out than I'd
first given them credit for.  I need to use the dsp engine in them for more
things.

Anyway, I'm still on the road back.  Las Vegas is pretty warm as well, but
it's 115 isn't as bad as the more humid 111 in Scottdale.  Looking forward
to more forgiving climates back home.  90 will feel pretty cool after this.

-----Original Message-----
From: Herbert Graf
On Fri, 2004-07-23 at 20:33, picaccount wrote:
> I've had a few dspic courses now, but I didn't see anything all that new
to
> report to the list.

        Hehe, today was dsPIC day for me too, every class was about it. One
bit
of "scoop": Mchip will be releasing their own Ethernet PHY/MAC with SPI
interface! They are even considering adding it to one of their PICs. All
I can say is: it's about bloody time!! :)

> My perceptions have changed about the dsp engine
> though.  I've been thinking that the real use of these was just a bigger
> faster mcu.  They are quite a bit less dsp anemic than I first thought.
> They've done some pretty interesting things with these.  The most fun was
> the dsp sound class.  They've also got these running soft modems, 5 band
> eq's and a few other things in the demos in the mchip displays.  I've just
> been using them as a fast "c" friendly pic --haven't been using the dsp
for
> anything yet.  That'll hafta change --there's a good deal of power
available
> in that engine.

        Agreed. Mchip did a really good job today with convincing me that
the
dsPIC is more then just a super fast PIC, it is capable of doing some
VERY interesting things. Unfortunately I just don't have much that needs
that sort of stuff, but now that I know I'm sure I'll come up with
something in the future.

> Anyway, the conference is pretty cool...  There have been a couple of
> classes that weren't up to the standard of some of the other presentations
> that I took.  I've still learned a lot and had a lot of fun in the
process.
> Microchip did a nice job.  Does any other vendor do something like this
--at
> the same entrance fee?  I'm going to try hard to go next year as well.

        Course quality has been spotty for me. Some were REALLY good (the 4
hour Advanced signal processing with the dsPIC was an excellent hands on
class, of course it might have helped me if I KNEW anything about the
dsPIC before attending, but I still completed all the labs and learned
allot). OTOH some were quite bad IMHO. The last one I took today was
basically an ad for CMX's soft modem and TCP/IP stack. Now, while their
products were interesting, it wasn't really a "course", more like a
commercial. My reason for complaining is the course description was IMHO
a little misleading on what the course would be about. Oh well.

        All in all my main problem has been over and underestimating how
difficult a course is. Many of the courses I attended were a little on
the simple side. My fault really, I guess I didn't rate myself properly
when selecting courses.

> Have you noticed that the food has changed the last few meals?  I think I
> recognized most of it --no Hopi-indian bread and mud baked turkey the last
> few times  --Still really good though.

        Agreed. Breakfast was very good this morning, as was lunch, we'll
see
what they have for us for dinner.

> I also got to meet Olin Lathrop.  A very nice guy in person.  He's got
some
> pretty varied interests.  Anyway, I've met lots of NZ and other
nationality
> folks here, but no one else I recognized from the piclist.  There's always
> next year I suppose.

        Actually I saw him too, I was in a rush and he was talking with a
bunch
of people so I didn't introduce myself. Of course, since I did play a
part in his getting taken off the list maybe it's best I didn't say
"hello"... :) TTYL


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