Controlling OG-4 Decathron with PBP in an efficient way.

[CuriousOne]

Hello, I'm adding an OG-4 decathron tube to my open source nixie clock project. It being run by separate PIC and own power supply. The tube has following pins, which are being driven by MPSA42 transistors, controlled via PIC12F683. These pins are


Z - reset pin,also lights up, let's call it "zero"
A,B,C - enable pins


So sequence is as follows:


do
pulse Z, then pulse A, B, C in repeating loop, 9 times, after that
pulse A and then pulse B, to lit up remaining dots
loop


This code provides the spinning in clockwise direction (there are also PAUSE statements, to adjust the speed). To reverse the direction, sequence after Z should be C, B, A


So what I want to achieve. It does 1 complete run and comes back to zero. Then starts at 1st dot at right to zero and again makes 1 complete run and comes back to 1st dot. After that, it starts from 2nd dot and makes turn till it reaches 2 again, then starts at 3 and goes to 3 and so on, including 29th dot. Then starts over


I've developed very crude and inefficient code for that, which runs on 12F683. I only have made animation till 10th dot and it already using 1k of available chip memory. Of course, I can switch to say 12F1840, but code is still not that good - any attempt to add say 2 times making the same rotation needs complete code rewrite. So is there a way that my code can be optimized? or I have another idea, Decathron tube can be considered as a kind of shift register, so maybe there is another, more efficient approach of doing the above task?

Here is my code

'****************************************************************
'*  Name    : UNTITLED.BAS                                      *
'*  Author  : [select VIEW...EDITOR OPTIONS]                    *
'*  Notice  : Copyright (c) 2014 [select VIEW...EDITOR OPTIONS] *
'*          : All Rights Reserved                               *
'*  Date    : 15.05.2014                                        *
'*  Version : 1.0                                               *
'*  Notes   :                                                   *
'*          :                                                   *
'****************************************************************
ANSEL = %00000000    
CMCON0 = 7 
TRISIO=%00001000
OSCCON = %01110111
'Include "Modedefs.bas"
Define	OSC	8		' Set Xtal Frequency


'	Clk     Var	GPIO.5		' Data is clocked on rising edge of this pin            kviteli
'	Dta  	Var	GPIO.4		' Bits are shifted out of this pin          stafilosferi


ZERO    var     GPIO.0
ONE     VAR     GPIO.4
TWO     VAR     GPIO.1
TRE   VAR      GPIO.2
cik var word  'loop variable
x   var word   'delay variable
increment var word 'incremental variable
lop var word  'also variable
increment=0  'temp
sub var word 'intracounter variable
sub=9
x=30


'INIT tube and reset to 0
inika:
LOW ONE
LOW TWO
LOW TRE
HIGH ZERO
PAUSE x
LOW ZERO


tavi:         


'stage 1______________________________________________
sub=9
gosub sub9
high one  'proper finish?  one and two
pause x
low one
high two
pause x
low two
high zero
pause 1000'delay for display
low zero




'stage 2 ______________________________________________


gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause 1000
low one


'stage 3____________________________________________


gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause 1000
high tre
low two
pause x
low tre


'stage 4____________________________________________
sub=8
gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause 1000
low tre


'stage 5____________________________________________


gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause 1000
low one


'stage 6____________________________________________


gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause 1000
high tre
low two


'stage 7____________________________________________
pause x
low tre
sub=7
gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause 1000
low tre


'stage 8____________________________________________
gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause 1000
low one


'stage 9____________________________________________
'X=100
gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause 1000
high tre
low two
pause x


'stage 10____________________________________________
low tre
sub=6
gosub sub9


gosub subzero
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
high one
low tre
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause 1000
low tre




goto tavi


sub9 'subroutine for spinning


for cik=1 to sub 'amount needed for full loop
high one
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high tre
low two
pause x
low tre
next


return




subzero:


high one  'proper finish?  one and two
pause x
high two
low one
pause x
high zero
low two
pause x'delay for display
high one
low zero 'subzero here


return

[tumbleweed]

One simple thing you can do is to combine commonly occurring sequences into a sub, for example

hl2:
    pause x
    high two
    low one
return

doing that (and making variables 'byte' instead of 'word') drops it down from 1K to 330

'****************************************************************
'*  Name    : UNTITLED.BAS                                      *
'*  Author  : [select VIEW...EDITOR OPTIONS]                    *
'*  Notice  : Copyright (c) 2014 [select VIEW...EDITOR OPTIONS] *
'*          : All Rights Reserved                               *
'*  Date    : 15.05.2014                                        *
'*  Version : 1.0                                               *
'*  Notes   :                                                   *
'*          :                                                   *
'****************************************************************
'device=PIC12F683

'Include "Modedefs.bas"
Define  OSC 8       ' Set Xtal Frequency

cik var byte       'loop variable
x   var byte        'delay variable
sub var byte        'intracounter variable

ZERO    var     GPIO.0
ONE     VAR     GPIO.4
TWO     VAR     GPIO.1
TRE     VAR     GPIO.2

ANSEL = %00000000    
CMCON0 = 7 
TRISIO = %00001000
OSCCON = %01110111


sub=9
x=30

'INIT tube and reset to 0
inika:
LOW ONE
LOW TWO
LOW TRE
HIGH ZERO
PAUSE x
LOW ZERO

tavi:         

'stage 1______________________________________________
sub=9
gosub sub9

high one  'proper finish?  one and two
gosub hl2
gosub hl0
pause 1000  'delay for display
low zero

'stage 2 ______________________________________________
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
pause 1000
low one

'stage 3____________________________________________
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
pause 1000
gosub hl3
low tre

'stage 4____________________________________________
sub=8
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
pause 1000
low tre

'stage 5____________________________________________
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
pause 1000
low one

'stage 6____________________________________________
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
pause 1000
high tre
low two


'stage 7____________________________________________
pause x
low tre
sub=7
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
high two
low one
gosub hl3
pause 1000
low tre

'stage 8____________________________________________
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
pause 1000
low one


'stage 9____________________________________________
'X=100
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
pause 1000
high tre
low two
pause x

'stage 10____________________________________________
low tre
sub=6
gosub sub9
gosub subzero
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
gosub hl1
gosub hl2
gosub hl3
pause 1000
low tre

goto tavi

hl0:
    pause x'delay for display
    high zero
    low two
return
    
hl1:
    pause x
    high one
    low tre
return

hl2:
    pause x
    high two
    low one
return

hl3:
    pause x
    high tre
    low two
return

sub9: 'subroutine for spinning
    for cik=1 to sub 'amount needed for full loop
        gosub hl1
        gosub hl2
        gosub hl3
    next
    low tre
return


subzero:
    high one  'proper finish?  one and two
    gosub hl2
    high zero
    low two
    pause x'delay for display
    high one
    low zero 'subzero here
return

I've bound to have goofed that up somewhere so it's up to you to fix whatever I screwed up, but you get the idea.

[CuriousOne]

Yeah I already started that, but had no idea, going from word to byte will save that much space
I'm still thinking, decathron is a ring counter/shift register, so maybe there is some other ways of controlling it....

[HenrikOlsson]

And stop using HIGH/LOW, those waste both time and space.

The animation can most likely be done with two FOR loops. An outer that steps thru the starting position from 1 to 29 and an inner that "sweeps the circle" one revolution starting/stopping at the dot pointed to by the outer loop.

If I'm not mistaken the effect you're after is similar to the the common "please wait the computer is busy" circle thingy you see on Windows systems?

/Henrik.

[CuriousOne]

You can't do it with two FOR loops, because you have to consider the reset pin and fact that number of dots is even, but number of control pins is odd. So it is always required to add an extra step out of loop, depending on even/odd current position.

The effect I'm making is as follows. Rotation starts from dot 1 and comes again to dot 1, stops there for a second, then quickly rotates one full loop, but stops at dot #1. Waits for a second, full spin and stop at dot #2 and so on, till it makes full turn.

[HenrikOlsson]

If you say so :-)
Do you have a datasheet describing the driving signals, I'm having some difficulties understanding how it works based on your description.

/Henrik.

[Ioannis]

And stop using HIGH/LOW, those waste both time and space....
/Henrik.

Well, I have some doubts about this. If it relates to output port registers I think it is necessary to use High/Low commands. Or at least this used to be the case with older versions of PBB.

Direct control of port registers like this portb.0=1 may cause problems when the program is long because of memory page issues. I may be wrong here. Anyone?

Ioannis

[richard]

If it relates to output port registers I think it is necessary to use High/Low commands.

the only problem with high/low is that they waste time and code space setting/clearing the tris register ,every time they are invoked.

Direct control of port registers like this portb.0=1 may cause problems when the program is long because of memory page issues.

the only issue with direct port writes once you have the tris reg set appropriately is the potential for rmw issues , especially at high clock speeds.
always use lat regs if possible and a shadow reg otherwise if rapid sequential port manipulation of individual pins will be employed