> --- In oopic@yahoogroups.com, Brian Lloyd <brian-wb6rqn@...> wrote:
>>
>>> If you are using an older chip (< C.1.1) then use V5. If you have
>>> the newest chip, you have a problem. Perhaps someone else can get
>>> it
>>> to work.
>>
>> I am getting to the point where I am wondering if it is worth it to
>> keep going with the OOPic.
>
> Don't take my test of V6 and oStepper as the gospel. I tried it and
> it didn't work immediately. I gave up and tried V5. Since I have
> only B.2.2+ there no reason for me to bother with V6. And I
> haven't...
>
> It is likely that someone else can get this to work. It's just that I
> have a short attention span - kind of like a 3d grader in that regard.
> If it doesn't work, I take a different approach.
It wasn't your posting other than it is yet another data point for the
problems with the OOPic. We *KNOW* there are problems with the OOPic
and its development environment. How much have we gone over the
problems with events? And still there is no fix. I don't know about
you but if something of that magnitude had escaped from my shop, I
would have had the dev team set aside everything to get that fixed so
my customers could get back to work. And I would have kept my
customers apprised every step along the way so they would have some
visibility into both the importance and timeliness of the fix.
> I really believe the Stamp is a better developed platform and there is
> no question that the documentation is orders of magnitude better. But
> there are issues: the servo pulses are not continuous and don't run in
> the background. Same with PWM. The chip has to take a very bizarre
> approach to doing analog input. Given a few moments, I could come up
> with a long list of warts. But the warts are documented and working
> examples are given.
And I agree with you 100%. As an architecture, the BS2 is, well,
suboptimal. Integral A:D is really important to me and RCTIME is a
real hack as far as I am concerned. I am teaching kids about voltages
and turning them into numbers. Doing that with the BS2 is, well,
RCTIME sure gets in the way. I was teaching them about how capacitors
work and we did write a program to charge and discharge capacitors
through a resistor and measure voltage and time on a 'scope. (Yes, I
have 5th-8th graders breadboarding circuits and then watching how they
behave using an analog oscilloscope.) But doing A:D using RC timing is
just too much to digest at one time. True A:D where a given voltage is
a number is actually easy to understand and to do something with.
So I agree. As an *architecture* I *LIKE* the OOPic a lot more.
But can I trust it? When there are problems I need them to be the
student's problems, not the sytem's.
> With both devices there is a tradeoff between ease of programming and
> sophistication of operation. There is nothing either of these devices
> can do that can't be done a lot better with the same underlying chip
> and 100 times as much programming effort.
That I understand. No argument. I have written code in darned near
every programming language and assembler on a LOT of machines.
> As I mentioned much earlier in your posts, there is no motivation for
> moving to C.1.1 or V6. It is much better to search around for B.2.2+
> chips (www.junun.org?) and work with V5.
I know. But it is unfortunate that I ended up with almost all C.1.1+
chips. Frankly there wasn't anything to say, "DON'T GET THE NEW CHIPS;
THEY ARE BROKEN."
> In terms of breadboarding an idea, nothing beats the OOPic.
So far, I agree.
> Whether
> it sees the light of day in the final design is another issue. I have
> 3 or 4 OOPics (2 in Mark III controllers) and I play with them when I
> want something down and dirty. When I want it to work, I move to the
> ATmega128 or one of the ARM7 devices. But this isn't feasible for
> your classes.
Nope.
> In my view, all of these controllers would be outgunned with one of
> the high end Z80 clones running an enhanced version of Palo Alto Tiny
> Basic. A few functions need to be written to interface with the
> hardware gadgets and the rest of the programming is just like
> timeshare Basic. It would be blistering fast (50 MHz, 1 clock per
> simple instruction), interpreted and able to handle all of the IO
> gadgets. Unfortunately, I am not motivated enough to do the work. I
> did get PATB running on an EZ80F91 board but then moved on to
> implement CP/M 2.2. CP/M would be an even better platform!
I would tend to disagree. I come from that age, having actually
written a full emulation of the Z-80 on a Nanodata QM-1 (we needed it
to test the UCSD P-system on a Z-80) and built several working systems
from scratch using the M6800 (a much better chip than the 8080 in my
estimation and the equal to the Z-80 but I digress). OS-8, RT-11, CPM,
and then MS-DOS were all jokes insofar as operating systems were
concerned. (I list them together because that is their lineage.) If
you are going to do that then it is time to talk about a real OS that
provides preemptive task scheduling and decent message-passing
interprocess communications.
But this has nothing to do with the OOPic.
> In the end, I just use the OOPic within its' limitations and am quite
> happy with B.2.2+ and V5.
At this point I wish I had the option. My point is one about customer
service and support. I just don't see a lot of motion on Savage's part
to solve this problem. Sure we can change chips and work around the
problem but aren't we the customers? What happened to "customer
support?"
I was pondering the possibility of replacing the BS2's with OOPics in
some or all of our BoeBots. Not now.
I guess I am just frustrated by once again having to work around
someone else's problems.
<grumble>
--
Brian Lloyd Granite Bay Montessori
brian AT gbmontessori DOT com 9330 Sierra College Blvd.
+1.916.367.2131 (voice) Roseville, CA 95661, USA
I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things . . .
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
PGP key ID: 12095C52A32A1B6C
PGP key fingerprint: 3B1D BA11 4913 3254 B6E0 CC09 1209 5C52 A32A 1B6C
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