On September 20, 2005 09:52 pm, Denny Esterline wrote:
> It's looking like I might have a future project that uses the
> 68hc11f1, since I haven't any prior experience with those, I thought
> I might solicit advice from those of you that have.
>
> And before you ask, yes I'd love to just redesign with a PIC, but
> it's not an option.

Sort of leaves me puzzled why, but if it's a customer thing, understood.

> So, what's the best way to get my arms around this thing? Any special
> gotchas to look out for?

The PIC WDT runs independent from the PIC clock, so if something fails 
on the PIC, the WDT resets anyways. The 6811 has to have the clock 
running for the WDT to work correctly. If you really need a Watch Dog, 
I would recommend a separate piece of hardware that the 6811 
trips/resets to say it is "OK".

You could probably use one of those new 6-pin PICs to act as an external 
WDT for the 6811 ;-)
... otherwise you will have to build some external WDT hardware that 
needs to be reset intermittently by the 6811 otherwise it will reset 
the 6811.

Unlike PICs which have a security bit, if you are looking for secure 
parts, make sure they are stamped with the S marking.  I ended up 
paying secure prices for non-secure parts because the distributor 
thought they were the same parts. They are not!

The Motorolas seem"ed" more reliable than the Japanese 3rd-party copies 
from what I understood, something about the flash memory being 
corrupted over the long-term a little more often despite proper 
programming (this is hearsay from someone who used to do a lot of 
them)... but that was over 10 years ago, so I don't know how that is 
now... things have most-likely/probably improved since then.

> Recommended software tools? (assembler, 
> simulator, etc)

The motorola 6811 free assemblers should do adequately if you are a 
careful programmer and separately test steps in modules, otherwise 
you'll need to look at fancier tools if you are prone to errors or are 
looking at something highly complicated. It's been a while, so can't 
think of anything to suggest.
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist