trying to decide on pbp

[cncmachineguy]

thanks Dave, both for the info and the quick response. What you say makes perfect sense, I suppose I will go ahead and pull the trigger. I think I was just worried cuz I spend lots of time doing stuff like counting instructions to make sure loops are not too long and such.

I started with a BS1, and as soon as I got away from the 200uS executes, I haven't looked back. Maybe thats what was spooking me. But as I remember, BS had built in interpretor, so hence long execution time.

First project will be 16F1946 interface card for parallel port to steppers, also handling limit switches, homing and such.

You are right, its really up to the keyboard bangger.

P.S.
Does PBP come with safety glasses or do I need to buy them elsewhere?

[mackrackit]

You will need to supply the glasses

Have you tried the PBP demo yet? Then you can see how it works.
At complie time PBP converts your code to ASM. The ASM is tricky to read because of the macros used but that is a good thing?

[cncmachineguy]

Have you tried the PBP demo yet? Then you can see how it works.
At complie time PBP converts your code to ASM. The ASM is tricky to read because of the macros used but that is a good thing?

Just did download the demo, haven't really played with it yet. As for the tricky ASM, I guess its a good thing if it teaches me tricky programming skills

I went ahead and ordered it last night, now just waiting on the goodies to arrive. I am sure I will be very happy with it, just being a chicken s***.

[Acetronics2]

Hi CNCMG

Having been Playing with R/C stuff for ... some years ... I can tell you PBP is a real Handy tool, and most of the time ... no assembler programming required.

The best advantage, I think, is a truly compact and reliable code ... with very short debugging time. ( if any time even necessary ...).


IF I had to find something weak ...

Let's say the lack of Whisle and Bells features like universal libraries for GLCD and so on, where 8 bits processors begin to show their limits ...

May be Real time processing stuff ... but it is a common weakness for PURE basic programming.

Most of time, a nicely structured program does it without pain.

PBP + assembler knowledge is the winning cocktail ...

Alain

[cncmachineguy]

If I need to be patiant and wait for the manual, feel free to tell me. Otherwise heres my next question.

How do you folks suggest I setup my work flow? By this I mean, I hace ICD3 (and ICD2) and am clearly used to working in mplab.

Am I now gonna want to work in a new IDE or add plugin to mplab or something else? I would normally just type my asm program in mplab, compile, program/debug, and done.

I know I can read the manual online here somewhere, but it doesn't feel like I saw a clear as mud answer last night while reading.

On a different note, will i always need to answer the random question or does it go away after some number of posts?

[mackrackit]

Being you are comfortable with MPLAB I would stay with it.
http://melabs.com/support/mplab.htm

The random question never goes away.... But there are only about six "randoms"

[rsocor01]

CNCGuy,

Also, you can watch the next video to get you started. The video also has some nice tips and tricks. Ignore the LABX-1 Experimenter Board part if you are not planning on using it.

http://video.melabs.com/getting_started/index.html

Robert