How much insterst woudl there be for....

[andrewpro]

Ok, so. I've been playing around with a design for a doohickey I've been working on, and decided that an external interface for MMC cards was prudent.

My question ot you guys: How muhc interest would there be if I tailored a version to fit with picaxes? It would be UART interfaced, and bridge a single picaxe pin to up to 8 MMC memory cards (sony memory stick too, I guess).

Basically this means serout to MMC. It wouldn't be based on a picaxe, though a picaxe could easily be made to do this. I'm making it out of an AVR for speed, though. So while I'd "open source" it, youd still need programming capability for an AVR.

What do you guys think? Would it be worth it to tailor make one for picaxes?

--Andy P

 

[Technical]

http://www.ghielectronics.com/USBwiz-OEM.htm

 

[hippy]

I think a lot would depend on what it can do and how easy it would be to build amd program, plus cost. Something ready built is usually more attractive than DIY from blank micro upwards.

I suspect that most PICAXE users are as such because they don't want the complexity of device programming and tool chains, even if capable of using them. I have nothing against the AVR but would generally be more interested if it was something which pushed me in the PICmicro ( and particularly 18F ICSP ) direction.

As a complete solution to a problem it would be a different matter though, so I certainly am not saying don't do it.

I have got a PICAXE interfaced to MMC but never completed the project. That needed an 18X and wasn't very quick at all because of the serial and needing to bit-bang SPI.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/the.happy.hippy/picaxe/axemmc.jpg

The most useful 'product' I can think of would be an I2C slave MMC interface so an MMC could be used just like a large I2C Eeprom.

Maybe develop your MMC interface then look at how you can turn that into an I2C slave usable with PICAXE and many other micros ? You never know, you might have a saleable product.

 

[andrewpro]

Well..I'm not too interested in marketable product really. I've neither the drive nor means at this time to do so.

I was thinking I2C, but was going to do it as serial for chips other than X's too. Making it I2C wouldn't be a problem, though. maybe dual interface...

As far as development goes, I could supply the pre-programmed AVR's at cost. Tha'ts not really a problem. Shipping may be an issue as we're all spread all over the world.

I just wanna pass somethin on to you guys, as you've all passed so much on to me.

--Andy P