Quote Originally Posted by PaulBarter
Did you ever get this sorted? I'm about to embark on a very similar exercise with a 16F877 and alfatSD board using PBP. Any snippets of code or other advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA
Sorry, I've been out of the country till last night. If at all possible, work with the SD or development board for these units to start with.I am a huge proponent of development kits, they are more money, but cheap in time.
Alfat is extremely finicky in regards to syntax and timing, and I have spent many hours over "spelling errors" and formatting issues.
Next, if possible, use text mode with the UART. This is the easiest, and most forgiving.Also, the learning curve is more gentle. I was one of the unlucky few that had to use SPI in framed mode. Now, there are plenty of programming examples in "C", and also Proton basic. The latter was invaluable, but required some translation.
SPI gives you the ability to free up your hardware UART and run at some impressive speeds, especially with a MSSP module as on the 18 series chips. You have to account for every single bit going into and out of the Alfat, but it works reliably. I went with framed mode, because it was easier to parse data and error responses(i've had more than my share!). The Alfat user's forum is quite helpful too.