Re: Switching audio via an Ocelot and SECU's

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Jeff Volp" <JeffVolp@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8GyEf.324638$qk4.55711@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Ah, I see the problem.  You are obviously from the software world.  I'm
from
> the hardware world.

Well, that's not exactly true - I build PC's for fun and have built at least
30 of them since 1984 when the clones first hit the market.  That was back
in the days of the IBM PC (even before the XT!) when you could expect a
clone motherboard to have mounting holes that didn't quite match up with the
case mounts.  PC's represent the fulfilment of the dream of completely
interchangeable parts, something that Detroit, the electronics industry and
many others have never really achieved.  You could take apart 20 PC's made
from different "generations" mix the parts and I could reassemble them all
because I am so familiar with the parts that make up PC's and the "epochs"
they represent.  EISA, ISA, PCI, PCI-E, SCSI I,II,II, LVDS, AGP 1-8X, SIMMS,
DIMMS, 16K memory chips, 1GB DDR pairs, flip chips, etc, etc. There's
nothing that makes me happier than taking someone's castoff PC and
rebuilding it into something useful like a HW firewall.

> I come from an era when we could do just about anything in 16K.  In
another
> life we developed a computer graphics adventure game (Powerstar) for the
old
> Atari 8-bit computer.  It fit into a 16K cartridge, and included 256
graphic
> images, text for each location, puzzles, and some animation.  While a LONG
> way from today's graphics, we managed to build each image from roughly 16
> bytes of compacted data in a 1/4 second.  Several lines of text describing
> each location cost us another 16 bytes average.  The Ocelot has more
memory
> than I will ever need.

Yes - if you start from that kind of background you're naturally going to be
very thrifty with your memory.  My first IBM PC came with 16K on the
motherboard and BASIC on a ROM.  I wince when I see how much space an OS
like XP required.  But I keep seeing people asking in the forum about when
ADI is going to boost the memory in the Leopard.  That leads me to believe
my use of memory would be more like theirs than yours.  It's also a reason
why I find C-MAX so frustrating.  There are so many times I want to do
something with a procedure call, or pass a parameter or use a case statement
and there's no easy way to do it.  It's really as far away from structured
programming as you can get and still call it programming.

I recall someone working very hard on a compiler for C-MAX a few years back
where a high level language could be used to write code and the compiler
would then take those instructions and turn them into C-MAX code.  I'm not
sure what happened to it.  The HomeSeer option looked good for a while, but
it still requires a PC running 24/7 so it seemed somewhat pointless to have
an Ocelot if you need a PC running all the time to command it.

> Regarding CMax, it is NOT a natural for me.  It comes from the industrial
> automation world, and evolved from relay logic.  It is not at all like
> assembly language programming.  Assembly is similar to high level, but
> without all the structure.  It has subroutines, passing multiple
parameters,
> and all that.  I did most of my work with Motorola microcontrollers, which
> have a rich set of instructions, including hardware multiply.  The PIC on
> the other hand is downright archaic.  I think it received so much
acceptance
> because it is cheap and simple.  Did I say it is CHEAP.

Agreed.  It *was* cheap - much cheaper than any PC-based solution when it
first appeared (at least 10 years ago, I'm guessing, probably longer).  But
now a fully loaded mini-PC weighs in at the same cost, a little bit larger
size, a little bit greater power consumption and outrageously greater
capabilities.  The cost savings that were obvious before are no longer quite
so clear.   Now ADI's main claim to fame is reliability.

My shopping list for new ADI equipment was approaching the $900 mark before
I decided to investigate other options.  The fact that nothing changed on
the ADI website since I looked four years ago really made me nervous.  I
don't want to run the risk of running my house on what turns out to be an HA
version of Betamax.   I think ADI also realizes that the playing field has
changed in HA and lots of people require more horsepower than the Ocelot can
deliver.  I can't help but think that's one of the reasons Dan Boone left.
He realized the Ocelot line isn't nearly as cost-effective as it once was
and that time might be running out for it.  On the other hand, HA in general
keeps getting closer and closer to being a mainstream product.

> I built industrial automation equipment (another garage operation) for
> companies that relied on that equipment for their productivity.  It had to
> work non-stop day in and day out.  It was a crisis when something broke
> down.  I still remember an early morning I was called into their facility
to
> fix a problem.  They said "Your equipment won't indicate continuity!", and
> placed a clip lead across those inputs to my controller to prove it.  I
ran
> a short internal diagnostic, and said "Your clip lead is open."  After
that
> they checked their wiring first.

:-)  It's *always* a crisis when things break down.  That's why, in another
message, I said I might break down the HA tasks into chunks that can be
processed by multiple PCs so that if I have fault, it doesn't bring down the
entire house.  I'm going to have to be very careful with the design.  As I
noted elsewhere, though, a set of spares for an ADI setup is a box of
equipment that has no other use.  A set of spares for a mini-PC based system
can actually be used as a PC testbench for SW, etc. until it's needed for a
swap out.

> I've participated in the ADI users group for several years, and have had
to
> find things myself.  No, it's not Google.  But it works.

I hope you'll taken into account the fact that you've been working with that
forum for years now - you've followed it from when there were very few
posts.  I've been trying to illustrate just how chaotic and out-of-date it
seems to newcomers.  Calling a list of the most recently asked questions a
FAQ is just bogus.  Call it a an EDQEA - "Every Damn Question Ever Asked"
(in no particular order!)

Yes, the forum is what it is, and it's hard to use - although not
impossible, but cleaning out dead links and announcements for years gone by
doesn't require a SuperWebMan, it just requires attention to detail.
Churning through all the posts and creating a *proper* FAQ doesn't require
fantastic web programming skills, it requires a little hard work.  Worse,
still, it's not as if the "website suggestions" forum isn't chock full of
these same sorts of comments.  All in all, these little items, when added
up, projects a sense that they don't much care about the product anymore.
Maybe that's a good thing in the PIC world.  No changes means no issues with
version control!

> So, go ahead and get your mini PC and all your high-end GUI stuff.  My
> simple Ocelot and X10 will still be chugging along fine until we finally
> have to downsize a decade or two from now.  It's kind of like the
> refrigerator.  It does what it is designed to do.  We never really think
> about it, but it would be hell to be without it.

The problem for me is it *can't* do what I want it to do.  It's deaf to RF,
it's impossible to maintain intellectual control over the program (at least
for me) because C-MAX programs seem to grow like Topsy and it's pretty
expensive when you compare what's in an Ocelot box to what's in a Mini-ITX
PC.  The problem I see is that if they can't attract new customers, they
really can't sustain operations.  Others disagree, but I see the moribund
website and the lack of any new components in three years as very telling
signs that the interests of the people making the Ocelot have moved
elsewhere.

As for OS's, "we don't need no stinkin' GUI!"  I grew up with DOS and Unix.
I'm probably more comfortable than most people with nothing but a C: prompt
staring me in the face.  I wouldn't have made this decision without the
tremendous groundswell of support for Linux, particularly on small boxes
like the VIA's.  As you said before, I would *never* trust an MS Windows
product if I hoped to even approach the levels of reliability that the
Ocelot offers.

--
Bobby G.