On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 02:50:54PM -0700, James Newtons Massmind wrote: > Your PICList trivia for today: > > I was messing about with the archives to find some information about the > list and I stumbled over a very early post from a member who is currently > (still?) subscribed: I'm still here dude. > http://www.piclist.com/piclist/1994/05/11/093219a.txt Byron A Jeff is, as > far as I can tell, the longest subscribed member of this list. As of the day > after tomorrow, that is 12 years stuck on the list. Stuck?! If I could only be stuck in such a wonderful place in real life! > http://www.cafepress.com/piclist.1772077 (before MIT upgraded to Mailman, we > had a lot of people trying to unsubscribe by sending various misspellings of > "unsubscribe" to the list rather than the list server. It became a joke that > was printed on t-shirts, mugs, etc...) > > I wonder if his boss at the university has any idea how much of his time > and bandwidth we have wasted over all that time. My advisor had no clue. However Dr. BAJ is finished now, so it doesn't really matter. I'm just wondering how long it'll take the IT folks to realize that I've graduated and cut off my account access! > Here's to BAJ! Thanks. For nostalgia's sake I took a peek at that post. Just for kicks I'm going to pull it up and annotate it: >> Hi, my name is Byron Jeff. I'm a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech and a I finally finished walking across the stage in December 2005. >> Asst. Prof. of Computer Science at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. I moved from CAU to Clayton State University just south of Atlanta GA USA in 2002. >> I think the mailing list is a great idea. True. Very true. >> >> Anyway I just wanted to get the discussion going. After hearing about >> the PIC 16C5X parts in Circuit Cellar INK, I quickly made friends with >> my local Microchip Representative. I've gotten some samples of the >> 16C71, 16C54, and later on some 25 Mhz 17C42's. I still have these parts stuck in a drawer somewhere. >> >> Unfortunately I've had neither the time or the equipment to exploit >> these chips yet. I finally got an original PICSTART and programmed some of these parts. >> I have a few areas of interest I'd like to share with you. Feel free to >> send mail if you'd like to discuss it. >> >> - Device programmers. Most of the talk on the sci.electronics newsgroup >> has been about a homebrew 16C84 programmer. I can see why most folks >> are attracted to the part because of the EEPROM. But while the PIC >> programmers available are relatively inexpensive, there isn't a cheap >> way to program all the PIC family members and adding up the costs of >> the different programmers can get quit expensive. So in the small >> amount of spare time I have I've been working up a design for a device >> programmer. CUMP version 0.0001? ;-) >> Unfortunately device programmers are usually a catch-22 >> situation: the best way to build a device programmer is to start with >> a programmed device. A battle that we've waged on this list many a time. >> So my first target is going to be the PIC 17C42. >> (BTW DIGI KEY is selling the 17C42 and the new 16C64.) I'm sure that USB parts are the rage now. Are the PIC24's out yet? >> There was an >> article in Electronics NOW for a 16C5X programmer (that used a 17C42) >> and it had a small blurb about a 17C42 programmer (that used a 8749 Intel >> microcontroller). It seemed way too complicated. I'm planning on >> bootstrapping from a PC. It's good to see that I'm consistent thematically. I still think that bootstrapping from a PC is the best way to go on a homebrew. >> - Languages - I've seen the adds (sic) for a C compiler for the PIC 16C5X series. >> Seems like going duck hunting with a bazooka. NICE! ;-) >> I'm teaching a class in >> system software development and 2 of the projects are a simple assembler >> and compiler. I've choosen the PIC platform as the target. Unfortunately >> none of my students completed the whole project. It's good to see that students haven't changed. >> But I've been working on it the compiler on and off. Mostly off. NPCI is still sitting on various machines in my environs waiting to be put into production. >> The language is a simpified C syntax. You can find the language overview here: http://www.finitesite.com/d3jsys/README-NPCI.html >> I have the scanner, parser and expression evaluator done. All that's >> left is code generation. The code generator is done too. Mid project I switched to bytecode and an interpreter for the bytecode a la the Basic Stamp. >> Because of this class I also have the shell of an assembler. Not that >> PIC assembly is hard to do! True. Very true. I'm not sure if I still have that code laying around. But with the gputils is full effect, there's really no need anymore. >> I know that Microchip has assemblers for >> their parts but it's MSDOS only and they don't have source available. And except for the GPLed parts of the C30 compiler, nothing on that front has changed. >> I'm a Linux user myself Tried and true, thru and thru! >> so DOS based tool have no real use for me. Consistent theme. You can substitute Windows here. >> In fact the Microchip DOS assemblers crash my Linux DOS emulator. DOSEMU! Now that's something I haven't run in a minute! >> For the assembler I'm planning on MICROCHIP format only (no parallax >> meta stuff) and just enough so that the compiler can use it. Abandoned for reasons listed above. >> BTW nothing is finished. My final thematic element. I just can't bring myself to release early and often as I should. Probably the guilt of working on PIC stuff instead of my PhD work. But now is the time. >> However I'm hoping to spend some time next month finishing up. I used to have that same optimism about my dissertation. It showed up in finished form 5 years after its expected due date. >> - Applications - My main hobby is computer based music. Which I'm itching to get back to finally. >> I'm currently designing a hardware MIDI sequencer that's going >> to use PIC's for >> IO processors for devices such as the keyboard/mouse, LCD display, >> and MIDI serial ports. I remember that design! the 68340 was pretty cool. >> The main processor is a Motorola 68340 board >> I put together last year. And just to show that I have a tough time throwing anything away I just saw that perfboard with that 68340 when I was cleaning a trailerful of junked computers, monitors, ISA cards and printers out of my basement this weekend. >> Anyway just wanted to get the ball rolling on the mailing list. And thousands of users and billions and billions of posts later, here we are. I think the ball is rolling, don't you? ;-) >> Tell us about what you're trying to do with PIC parts. Well I'm still too much the tool maker and not enough the applications developer. My goal is to embed a NPCI interpreter and a robust bootloader together on different families of PIC parts. The Trivial Programmer, which was birthed right here on the list, is still going strong. My three best projects are home automation projects that are still going strong and are used on a daily basis. I still want to get that portable hardware MIDI going. I'm holding a 32 MB CF card along with a CF to 40 pin adapter that will form the core of the sequencer right here in my hand. I hope to use my next six unstructured weeks between classes to get some of this stuff going. I'll let you know how it turns out... ...in about a dozen more years! ;-) >> >> Later, >> >> BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist