[Development] Lights, 12 or 14 bit micro

["Dr John Tankard" <john@xxxxxxx>]

Mainly for Keith,

As you know I have been away and doing some work on the project. Here is
what i have done:-

1) gone through the various versions of my lighting prototype to find the
best version to port.

2) Tested out the Rabbit core.

3) Checked out both my compiler and ICEPIC for which parts it supports
and the cost to switch to other parts.

As result neither my compiler or my ice will support the 12 bit parts, It
will cost 99USD to expand my compiler to cover 12 bit along with the 14
bit parts it already works with. My ICE is much more expensive, perhaps
300 quid to convert. So as I see it I have three choices:-

A) upgrade
B) bit bash in assembler
C) switch to a 14 bit part.

The first option i think is to expensive, the second is ok but will take
some/a lot of time. The third is easy for me but will make it harder for
Keith. It woul mean one 16Cxx part for 8 outputs, rather than 8 12cxxx on
the same board as the triac's.

The last option does have other plus points, I will have a extra serial
port which will allow control from othrt than tcp/ip if needed, much more
RAM, only 25 bytes on the 508 41 bytes on the 509, compaird with 192
bytes on most of the 14 bit parts, also there would be no address problem
as one micro would handle all 8 outputs.

There is a down side, the parts cost is greater, if the pic gets zaped
you will loose all 8 channels.

Any comments


John





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