[time-nuts] PICTIC II ready-made?

Fri Apr 27 19:03:20 UTC 2012

You might want to take a look at the Atmel XMEGA parts. Far more capabilities
than the ATMega parts.

Brief description:
• Atmel AVR CPU - Clock speed to 32MHz
• Memories
• DMAC - Direct memory access controller
• Event system
• System clock and clock options
• Power management and sleep modes
• System control and reset
• Battery backup system
• WDT - Watchdog timer
• Interrupts and programmable multilevel interrupt controller
• PORT - I/O ports
• TC - 16-bit timer/counters
• AWeX - Advanced waveform extension
• Hi-Res - High resolution extension
• RTC - Real-time counter
• RTC32 - 32-bit real-time counter
• USB - Universial serial bus interface
• TWI - Two-wire serial interface
• SPI - Serial peripheral interface
• USART - Universal synchronous and asynchronous serial receiver and transmitter
• IRCOM - Infrared communication module
• AES and DES cryptographic engine
• CRC - Cyclic redundancy check
• EBI - External bus interface
• 12-BIT ADC - Analog-to-digital converter
• 12-BIT DAC - Digital-to-analog converter
• AC - Analog comparator
• IEEE 1149.1 JTAG interface
• PDI - Program and debug interface

These parts are a little more than the ATMega parts by a few dollars, but oh so much
more capability. Studio 5 is now a very nice IDE to work with albeit for Windows only.
But all the same tools that you use under most development environments are useful
with the XMega parts as well. Atmel also provides a very nice library for these parts,
and works nicely under GNU tools.

Just my $0.02 worth.
Jerry - N7EME

At 04:57 PM 4/25/2012, you wrote:
>On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 4:24 PM, WB6BNQ <wb6bnq at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Chris,
>>
>> Your undying devotion to the Arduino is laudable.  However, the point that
>> i
>> think you are missing is such functionality is also available on other
>> platforms
>> with the same amount of ease and support.  If you take someone who has
>> never
>> seen, touched nor had any knowledge of any computing process, then you
>> would find
>> that they would have just as much beginning trouble with the Arduino as
>> any other
>> platform.
>>
>
>No, some platforms are harder than others.  Building an FPGA powered
>project at home is harder than writing a Perl script.  Using a bare AVR
>chip is harder then using the same chip inside an Arduino.  Try listing all
>the skills one must learn to make an LED blink on various platforms.
>
>You are correct about no platform being perfect.  Arduio is not well suited
>to anything that you are going to manufacture.  The unit cost and size are
>both 10X to high and it lacks enough power for things like signal
>processing.  It is well suited to building one off projects that don't
>require much compute power.
>
>It's advantage is that it makes uP development slightly easier than writing
>a Perl script.   The user does not need to know much.
>
>
>I've used all kinds of computers,  Mainframe machines to control radars and
>uPs to control head movement on a disk drive and I used a Linux system once
>inside a CCD camera.
>
>In this case I thought if the PicTic were to be redone I'd like for it to
>be "hackable" by beginners who don't know a lot about TICs or uPs.  If you
>make it to complex people will see it as a black box
>
>
>
>> A true computer NERD would have the ability to flexibly deal with different
>> platforms, as each have their strengths and weaknesses.  Thus no one
>> platform is
>> perfect and you chose the one that best fits the project.
>>
>> Bill....WB6BNQ
>>
>>
>> Chris Albertson wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:45:52 -0700
>> > > Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Bill Dailey <docdailey at gmail.com>
>> > > wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > > I have wondered the same thing.
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > It might be time for a group project to design a "Pictic III" that
>> uses
>> > > > parts that are readily available.   Today I'd build it around an
>> Arduino
>> > > > rather than a PIC even if the cost is more.  Arduino is programmable
>> by
>> > > > __anyone__ and plugs into a USB port, no onwwouldhave to supply
>> programed
>> > > > chips and because it is so easy to program maybe some users would
>> try to
>> > > > make improvements and offer them to others.
>> > >
>> > > May i ask what makes the arduino programable by "__anyone__" ?
>> > > Sofar, i only had a look at the hardware of arduino, but never looked
>> > > at the software side, as for me, who is regularly writing C code for
>> > > bare metal uC applications, the software part is solved if i know that
>> > > gcc can generate code for the architecture in question.
>> >
>> > I can do the same thing too.   But there is a steep learning curve for
>> most
>> > people.   What makes the Arduino easy for beginners is the combination
>> of...
>> >
>> > 1) A boot loader that makes the Adruino self programmable over USB.  No
>> > other hardware is required.  This also means EVERYONE has the same
>> > programming hardware so the software can hide the fact that it is even
>> > being used.  No "settings" to figure out
>> >
>> > 2) The IDE is written in Java and is portable.  It is truly identical on
>> > all platforms.  Yes it uses gcc but the end user never has to deal with
>> gcc
>> > or even know what gcc is.  Same with saving your code, hit just puts it
>> > "some place" and keeps track of it
>> >
>> > 3) There is a library of functions that work together.   and the library
>> is
>> > the SAME on even Arduino so all the example code "just works".  you can
>> cut
>> > and paste code between projects.   Most people when they write programs
>> are
>> > really stringing together library calls.  So it takes two lines of code
>> to
>> > get the value from an ADC and send it over USB to a PC.
>> >
>> > 4) There are lot of books and on-line training materials and all the
>> > examples work on all platforms and on all Arduino compatible devices.
>> >
>> > 5) it is fast.  I can change a line of code and then hit the "load"
>> button
>> > and seconds later the changed code is running on the Arduino.  It is
>> almost
>> > like programming an interpreted language
>> >
>> > 6) The whole system was designed so that artists and designers could us
>> > microcontrollersin their projects.     The first test project I did was
>> to
>> > read the voltage from the wiper on a 100K pot and display it on an LCD
>> > screen.   It took a little over an hour and that included wiring up the
>> > hardware, plugging the Arduino into the computer.  Then I unplug the USB
>> > cable and connect a 9V battery and I have a portable toy project.
>> >
>> > Chris Albertson
>> > Redondo Beach, California
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
>> > To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> > and follow the instructions there.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>>
>
>
>
>-- 
>
>Chris Albertson
>Redondo Beach, California
>_______________________________________________
>time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
>To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>and follow the instructions there.

Jerry Mulchin