A header wizard

**prstein** · - 22nd September 2010, 04:37

Hello Everyone,

It's late and I'm tired so I apologize about not replying individually to the bug reports, comments, and suggestions. The enthusiasm and encouragement is also much appreciated.

My poor head is not thinking perfectly straight tonight so I'll just try to weigh in on some of the discussion. I've found (and fixed) the bug Alain identified. I tried to push the text around on the form so none of it interferes with other objects. I've also moved the project from Delphi 4 up to Delphi 2006 (now a part of Borland Developer Studio) to see if that has any effect on the aesthetics. I want to see what else I can implement quickly before getting another version out, so it gets taken a little further instead of just a bug fix.

Bert has made the suggestions of creating a few mock microcontrollers to test out the various features. I support instead identifying a small handful of µCs that are representative. My suggestions are the 12F683, 16F628, 16F877, 18F452, 18F1330, and 18F67J50. Naturally these are the chips with which I have the most experience.

The sky is the limit for the application BUT I don't want to be working on this the rest of my life... (I'm happy to send the source to anyone on request.) There should be defined goals for the first "release" of the application. I would have been happy with setting the configuration fuses...8^) Plan ahead for features to go in subsequent versions. To paraphrase George Patton, "A good application today is better that a perfect application later."

In volunteer software projects "later" turns into "never" all too often so let's wind up with, at minimum, something useful even if it doesn't have everything.

I suggest putting the desired function list into two or three tiers--"Very Important," "Nice to Have," and "Would be Cool but..."

I am not the best programmer/electronics guy on the planet, probably not even in the top 50% of the (incredibly knowledgeable, helpful, gentle, and patient) contributors to this list. What I do have going for me is a broad base of general knowledge and the fact that I'm not really good at giving up on projects. With all of that said, any code, pseudo-code, logic, or even flow charts helping map out how to generalize any of these functions would make it go a lot faster, as the alternative is me plowing through a dozen or so databooks. I'm not averse to that, but it is slower.

And I gotta say, DT's ALLDIGITAL.pbp is a absolute work of art.

Best Regards (and apologies for rambling--again),
Paul

**Ioannis** · - 22nd September 2010, 07:33

Hi Paul.

Do not appologize for anything. You did a great job so far. We all appreciate the effort and understand that few lines that the project delivers, need a wholo lot of work on the background.

Even if you decide to stop here, be sure to have our appreciation. But if you want to take it further, well we would be more happy,

Thanks again,
Ioannis

**mackrackit** · - 22nd September 2010, 10:29

Paul,

In my opinion the program you have is a good place to stop for a first release. Then after it is used for awhile and hidden bugs chased out add more stuff. I guess the other big thing to add for another release would be interrupts??

One thing to add to the General tab that might save some problems is an MCLR in/reset option.

Your program makes my attempt at a web based system feeble. I like they way yours looks and works.

I suggest putting the desired function list into two or three tiers--"Very Important," "Nice to Have," and "Would be Cool but..."

Good idea.

My suggestions are the 12F683, 16F628, 16F877, 18F452, 18F1330, and 18F67J50. Naturally these are the chips with which I have the most experience.

Could you add 18F2550 to the list???

In volunteer software projects "later" turns into "never" all too often

I resemble that remark

The sky is the limit for the application BUT I don't want to be working on this the rest of my life...

Hopefully another Delphi programmer will come along to help.

Thanks again for all the work you have done on this!!!!!

**cncmachineguy** · - 22nd September 2010, 12:23

Paul,

I did not intend or mean to seem ungrateful or overwhelm you in any way. Thus far Your app is GREAT and I agree with Dave, at this point it is useable and helpful. Just not having to tend to the TRIS on initilize is a big step in being a wizard. If you were to stop now (which I REALLY hope doesn't happen), I'm sure I will use what you have given us for a good while.

As for my very long post, I was really attempting to nail down some sort of idea as to where this is or could be going. Then as I was creating the post, I was a bit overwhelmed, so I started thinking how can we help? After all, I really don't think this should be an "all on 1 person" kinda thing.

Yes the tier idea is perfect! I think the way you are creating this is very good. At anytime, what you have is useable, and also a new function/feature can be added. I don't personally care much about how it looks, I'm a "form after function" kind of guy. But I really DO LOVE your new icon.

I'm not really clear on how you are actually creating this "magic" for us. by that I mean, do you get all the info from a .inc file, then have gillions of if_then or Case type functions?

I will see if I can come up with some sort of flow chart/descision making generalization for a feature.

Again, BIG THANKS for what you have done!

**prstein** · - 23rd September 2010, 04:30

Hello All,

First, just to make it clear, the fact I was fried the last time I posted had nothing to do with this project! I do not feel unappreciated or overwhelmed. You folks are all just swell! My day job, on the other hand....8^)

So I had a few hours tonight and started in on the ADC stuff. I decided to start with the 16F877 (which used to be my "go to" microcontroller). I then started implementing the next nearest type of ADC I could find, which is represented by the 16C433. Those two appear to be making the right data, but the application is picking up way more other PICs than are actually handled in the same manner.

I can think of at least three ways of writing the configuration bits in PBP. First, the terse way is to write everything in a single line for each register, e.g.

Code:

ADCON0 = %10101010

The second is to do it a bit at a time, still referencing the registers, e.g.

Code:

ADCON0.7 = 1
ADCON0.6 = 0
etc.

The third (and most verbose) way is to alias the register bits and set them by name, e.g.

Code:

ADCS1   var ADCON0.7
ADCS0   var ADCON0.6

ADCS1 = 1
ADCS0 = 0

There are probably other ways, too, but I've tried implementing the first and third methods. In the verbose mode I also tried to add helpful comments. There are two screenshots attached showing the results of both ways.

Best Regards,
Paul