Jeremy Harris
Senior Member
There's already one here: http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?18044-Maximite!Start a thread and see what happens.
There's already one here: http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?18044-Maximite!Start a thread and see what happens.
For those of a tender age, & thus perhaps ignorant of the "rush to market" implications,Dippy's comment from post #39 relates to Britain's Sir Clive Sinclair. FWIW I used to import his MAT121 transistors back in ~1964!It all sounds very Sinclair
Yes, a double standard, I agree. But, I understand the caution in Hippy"s note. I mentioned the other day that the Arduino forum was more granular and that there were some concepts that I wished RevEd would incorporate. "Community" consists of 7 sub-groups that cover the bulk of things we PICAXE forum members cannot overtly do here,And yet there seems no problem in mentioning the Pi because of its "potential integration" with the PICAXE. Case of double standards me thinks.
The way I see it is the Foundation thought it could get away with selling 10K without requiring CE certification by saying they were only selling to developers, but chose to sell them to the general public and then found they needed to be CE certified before such sales could go ahead.>"Belatedly discovered it needed to be CE certified before public sales" - oh dear oh dear. That sort of stuff should have been discussed while they were doing the Business Plan!
It’s not quite as simple as that. The business plan (as I understand it) was to sell 10,000 bare boards to hobbyists—CE certification no more needed than for the Beagleboard, which lacks it. Certification was to follow after a wringing-out period before mass production was started for the target educational users.
My comments were mainly in response to Don's post #23. I don't believe there is a double standard; more an issue of context and intent ...Dippy, the "discouraged" bit comes from the following comment from Hippy regarding the Maximite thread mentioned above.
"It's an interesting product but ( to everyone ) let's not step over that fine line between can be used with to suggesting, even if not overtly stated, is better than or should be used instead of, or using the potential of integration as simply an enabler to advertise, promote or sell non Rev-Ed product which breaches forum policy".
And yet there seems no problem in mentioning the Pi because of its "potential integration" with the PICAXE. Case of double standards me thinks.
There are fine lines between saying there are alternatives, noting what they are, saying why they may be a better choice, promoting a product as an alternative, and encouraging people to go elsewhere.No need for anyone to twitch because the PICAXE is great for its intended market. I have certainly not found anything better for quickly developing microcontroller based projects. However, should we feel constrained from mentioning more powerful alternatives when the application clearly exceeds its capabilities?
For example, posts often ask how to perform maths, graphics or mass storage functions and seem to receive far from convincing advice on how to do it with a PICAXE. At this point should we just suggest using a more powerful device like the Maximite or Pi microcontrollers with helpful details?
Definitely and consistently German food since 2007:Isn't your explanation talking about Italian food when I asked about German food? Interesting and good, but the heading does say, "PICAXE Forum."
You make a good point there.Without having to learn a new language the readily available Maximite chip can directly support SD card interfacing, composite video, VGA graphics (sorry, no HDI) and has a few I2C chips worth of EEPROM and Flash already on-board. This has got to be a more cost effective approach than trying to add these features to a microcontroller.
OH yes.I'm reminded of the early (late '70s-early '80s) home PC era, when yelling & screaming your darling's features was the norm. "If you can't beat them,then join them" may be best overall?
That was not my intention at all. To qualify my remarks, Maximite clever thing, but PICAXE is better, and I prefer it - which should be obvious from my previous comparison comments.Although Grogster's, concluding remark was light hearted, it does risk giving the impression that the PICAXE and Maximite could somehow be competing products. I would certainly not have mentioned the latter on this forum if that were the case.
Fiendishly flailing fingers, small screen and auto correct are my excusesAnd we're saying that the RPiPeople were unware of that possibility?
// LCD Thermostat
// www.hacktronics.com
#include <OneWire.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
// Connections:
// rs (LCD pin 4) to Arduino pin 12
// rw (LCD pin 5) to Arduino pin 11
// enable (LCD pin 6) to Arduino pin 10
// LCD pin 15 to Arduino pin 13
// LCD pins d4, d5, d6, d7 to Arduino pins 5, 4, 3, 2
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2);
int backLight = 13; // pin 13 will control the backlight
OneWire ds(8); // ds18b20 pin #2 (middle pin) to Arduino pin 8
byte i;
byte present = 0;
byte data[12];
byte addr[8];
int HighByte, LowByte, SignBit, Whole, Fract, TReading, Tc_100, FWhole;
void setup(void) {
pinMode(backLight, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(backLight, HIGH); // turn backlight on. Replace 'HIGH' with 'LOW' to turn it off.
lcd.begin(2,16); // rows, columns. use 2,16 for a 2x16 LCD, etc.
lcd.clear(); // start with a blank screen
lcd.setCursor(0,0); // set cursor to column 0, row 0
if ( !ds.search(addr)) {
lcd.clear(); lcd.print("No more addrs");
delay(1000);
ds.reset_search();
return;
}
if ( OneWire::crc8( addr, 7) != addr[7]) {
lcd.clear(); lcd.print("CRC not valid!");
delay(1000);
return;
}
}
void getTemp() {
int foo, bar;
ds.reset();
ds.select(addr);
ds.write(0x44,1);
present = ds.reset();
ds.select(addr);
ds.write(0xBE);
for ( i = 0; i < 9; i++) {
data[i] = ds.read();
}
LowByte = data[0];
HighByte = data[1];
TReading = (HighByte << 8) + LowByte;
SignBit = TReading & 0x8000; // test most sig bit
if (SignBit) {
TReading = -TReading;
}
Tc_100 = (6 * TReading) + TReading / 4; // multiply by (100 * 0.0625) or 6.25
Whole = Tc_100 / 100; // separate off the whole and fractional portions
Fract = Tc_100 % 100;
if (Fract > 49) {
if (SignBit) {
--Whole;
} else {
++Whole;
}
}
if (SignBit) {
bar = -1;
} else {
bar = 1;
}
foo = ((Whole * bar) * 18); // celsius to fahrenheit conversion section
FWhole = (((Whole * bar) * 18) / 10) + 32;
if ((foo % 10) > 4) { // round up if needed
++FWhole;
}
}
void printTemp(void) {
lcd.clear();
lcd.setCursor(0,0);
lcd.print("Temp is: ");
lcd.setCursor(0,1);
if (SignBit) {
lcd.print("-");
}
lcd.print(Whole);
lcd.print(" C / ");
lcd.print(FWhole);
lcd.print(" F");
}
void loop(void) {
getTemp();
printTemp();
delay(1000);
}
That comparison is ignoring the firmware code in the PICAXE and a tad biased.to read the sensor takes some 8296 bytes of the 32K, conversely I can do the same on the PICAXE in 921 bytes, which shows the inherent efficiency of using the inbuilt interpreter of the PICAXE and running a p-code rather than compiled code
Your comparison is also a "tad" biased. The 28X2 actually has 4 x 4096 byte slots for code so that's 16K, leaving 16K for the firmware. And on Arduino, with every simple library you add that is provided as standard on the PICAXE, you add lots more bytes to the used program memory total. An Arduino with 16K memory wouldn't go as far as a PICAXE with 16K memory.That comparison is ignoring the firmware code in the PICAXE and a tad biased.
For instance, the 28X2 has available for use 4 x 2048 byte slots for code. Thats 8K. The native PIC is a 18F25K22, which is a 32K device. Thus we assume the firmware takes up 32k - 8K = 24K.
So your 921byte PICAXE program takes up 921 + 24K (firmware) = 25K.
So 8K for Arduino, 25K for PICAXE.
Fair enough, a typo on my part.Your comparison is also a "tad" biased. The 28X2 actually has 4 x 4096 byte slots for code so that's 16K, leaving 16K for the firmware