Date: Wed, 23 Oct 91 13:42:47 CDT
From: menelli@sunje.tellabs.com (Ron Menelli)
Message-Id: <9110231842.AA02654@sunJe.TELLABS.COM>
To: glove-list@karazm.math.uh.edu
Subject: RE: PG controller board
>Given the very experimental tendancy of this group I have a sugestion
>for the people designing outboard controller cards.  I would love to
>have one which I could down load the code to.  In my experience, being
>able to down load a new version of the controller code, rather than
>having to burn another prom is a big win.  Especially for those of us
>who would have to burn the proms at work then bring them home to work
>on.

This is another reason that I think that the 68HC811E2 is the way to go. The
2k of onboard EEPROM is more than enough for the current incarnation of the
driver software (about 800 bytes now w/deglitching code), and updates would be
very easy.

>Also, in terms of lower cost, such a system would let someone with
>considerably less equipment start experimenting with a controller
>card.  I haven't looked, but surely we can find a simple monitor for
>one of these controllers which will allow down loading?

I have written software for the Amiga that allows you to do that. A port should
be simple. The HC11 has a bootstrap mode where it loads 256 bytes from the
serial port into RAM and then executes it. My program sends a 256 byte
program that then executes a program on the HC11 when loads a variable length
into the EEPROM. No programming hardware is needed (except a jumper on the
board to select bootstrap mode).

-Ron Menelli
menelli@tellabs.com