In SX Microcontrollers, SX/B Compiler and SX-Key Tool, green_phantom wrote: Hello, Ken! Will microcontrollers and modules like the BASIC Stamp 2P40 remain in production beyond the announcement of discontinuation of the SX line? I always wanted to use BASIC Stamps because of their much broader capabilities compared with SX/B but these BASIC Stamps are pricey products that cost at least four times what you paid for an SX28 DIP chip! Propellers run for triple the the price. But listen to this: I am interested in developing computers based on microcontollers including the Microchip PIC series and the Intel 87C51, among them, along with robotics and gaming. Nobody will ever know why Ubicom is drawing in its horms on the SX, and I believe that there may NOT be a direct replacement. In case me and other Parallax customers may have been wondering, did you know that the SX28 is an expanded, modified version of the Microchip PIC16C57? The Propeller Chip might be inspired by or based on the Intel 87C51. With far more memory available, RAM and ROM than an SX (32KB RAM for instance), it must be a likely reason for the sad discontinuation. Happily, though, the Propeller chip is more affordable than a BASIC Stamp but it won't have the legacy and appeal of an SX. In my opinion, the SX line will be sorely missed. I have barely begun development of a hand-held remote-control/robotics/board-gaming computer that uses a pair of Wen Shing RF, 434-MHz transmitter and receiver modules and the SX28 DIP chip. I started this project in 2008 almost at the beginning of the year. You can look at a few pictures of the first device I completed under my topic SX28 Chip Based HandHeld, dated 6/16/2009, called the L6015. I am writing a manual with instructions on how it can be used. I haven't tested the RF communication modules yet but the general circuitry works perfectly. The SX/B program has been written, edited and developed for well over a year now. I already started developing a special programming language used with the hand-held device itself, which I call "PhantAsm." This language is not for the PC - it is used directly in the device. PhantAsm is a collection of BASIC statements "tokenized" into two-digit hexadecimal numbers from 00 to FF used as instructions. It has seven basic arithmetic instructions, $28 and 29H, $2A and $2BH and $2D to $2F, which are two unary instructions (2's compliment and inversion,) add, subtract and the three Boolean instructions AND, OR and XOR, respectively. There are 34 instructions for defining a value for registers X and Y I conceived, instructions $00 to $0FH for the least significant 4 bits of a byte and $10 to $1FH for the most significant 4 bits of a byte, which the two 4-bit values combine to make one byte to store into working registers X or Y. X is the accumulator's addend, subtrahend, AND-end, OR-end and XOR-end. The accumulator, which I call "ZR" (or just Z,) has the contents of X (or XR) added to it, subtracted from it and AND, OR and XOR operations. Instructions $63 and $67H let you read what is in the word ZR, $63 returns the least significant 8 bits of the word ZR and $67 returns the most significant 8 bits. The contents of the word ZR are stored into X. Y is the compare register. It is used to compare X with it. With the Y (or YR) working register, PhantAsm can execute four decision-making instructions; $4C, $4D, $4E and $4FH. These are to compare X with Y for the decision made if X = Y, X is not equal to Y, X < Y and X > Y, respectively. Instruction hexadecimal numbers $70H and up cause the PhantAsm code to jump to one of the SX28's 64 RAM locations starting at address $70, skipping $80 to $8F and into $90 to $9F, skips $A0 to $AF, into $B0 to $BF, skips $C0 to $CF and into $D0 to $DF. The left hexadecimal digit with values of 7, 9, B and D jump to the RAM locations in the SX28 starting at $70, $90, $B0 or $D0 and the right digit adds the value $0 to $F to the left-digit value. I developed an instruction using the first digit of the hexadecimal nmber (remember, from left to right,) with values of $8, A, C and E for data manipulation. I wrote a special code in SX/B so that values $80 to $8F, $A0 to $AF, $C0 to $CF and $E0 to $EF either load the contents of RAM addresses starting at $90 and to $FF into register XR or store the contents of XR into them. And there is even a maniplation instruction to increasae or decrease what is stored into those RAM addresses. Hexadecimal codes $80 to $EF are codes for the data RAM address pointer instruciton I call RWA for "Read or Write to Address." Two instructions I invented for the PhantAsm language in hexadecimal codes are $48, SET L/S, which means "SET data RAM address access to Load/Store,' $49, which is SET D/I, meaning "SET to Decrease/Increase mode for data RAM addresses," along with hexadecimal codes $4A and $4B which are instructions DIR 0 and DIR 1, respectively, which change the flow of data or the decreae/increase in value of the RAM addresses designated for data manipulation. There are also two more arithmetic instructions, $46 and $47 to shift the contents of the word ZR left or right, respectively. There are three instructions to set the registers to 0, three decrement and three increment instructions. The device also has its own speaker for sound feedback or Morse-code telegraph practice. I invented one handy instruction for the PhantAsm language, hex code $6C, that outputs whatever is in the accumulator to the speaker, though only bit 0 is involved, plus an RF communications "sending' instruction and a "receive" instruction so that you can communitcate with the device(s) in a "run-time" program. Serial displays may seem hard to use at first but once you get the hang of it, you will do just fine. I hope you find this project interesting! I am going to build an identical device to this first one I built (later) for 2-way communication and I am working on an electronics lab kit I built from the outer enclosure of an old jumpstarter battery station. It has a breadboard, a numeric keypad, an 8-digit dot matrix HCMS-2972 display and several boards for the SX28 and peripherals. But once supplies for the SX28 chip dry up, I am likely to move on to the Propeller and other microcontrollers. Meantime, I am going to stock up on whatever stock available, just enough for experimenting before I redesign my idea from scratch using other microcontrollers including the Propeller. Oh... and you know what? I am enthused by the Propeller's built-in system to display to your TV's audio/video RCA jacks! If I build a custom power supply to use the Propeller chip, I will probably use a 7805 (or similar) 5-VDC voltage regulator and a 3.3-volt zener diode and resistor combination. Again, Ken, I hope you found my project interesting! I hope to hear from you soon! Green_Phantom ---------- End of Message ---------- You can view the post on-line at: http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=7&p=3&m=372426#m376396 Need assistance? Send an email to the Forum Administrator at forumadmin@parallax.com The Parallax Forums are powered by dotNetBB Forums, copyright 2002-2009 (http://www.dotNetBB.com)