Re: HP-41 Clonix Adapter Clarification (hope so ;-) Message #8 Posted by Giuseppe Marullo on 28 Dec 2003, 9:31 p.m., in response to message #7 by Diego Diaz
Wow,
this little thingy is going to heat up our winter.
You are always welcome to ask me(us) questions, as Raymond and all the others, obviously.
I would like to build one Clonix module before speaking too much about it and I have to say that is a very smart solution as is.
That said:
>Why are you so interested in using a BootLoader?
It is a "method" like others with advantages and dis-advantages.
The advantage I see here is that I always imagined that the module would have been a self contained unit.
I don't like the idea to have a socket, a separate programmer (another!, cables, box ugh) etc. etc. I was thinking that the module connector is enough strange by itself.
I don't like the idea to depend on voltages generated from the serial port (laptops are terrible), so I will gladly steal power elsewhere. The olimex design is interesting, but I always got problems with the not-powered serial things in the long run.
I must admit that the serial programmer you are using is optimized and low cost but you are still tied to run where the pic programmer software is supported, dos for example. HP community could gain that they could use a wider range of equipment to program the clonix.
A serial bootloader can be fed from an Apple, dos, linux, PDAs.., whatever is able to feed byte on the serial port is able to reprogram the clonix.
Think about reprogramming it from your Palm...
I don't know how often it is supposed to be reprogrammed, maybe this is not a big problem at all.
Anyway if there is the availability of a connector, you could basically program the module without any pod, and this is could be a reasonable "hack" of your clonix module.
>Apart from those HW & SW inconveniences, the BL code >introduces a considerable delay in the PIC start-up time, >I have not evaluated the effect of such delay in the >overall Clonix behavior but it may potentially be harmfull.
This is an easy one, just place a magnet near the module when you want the bootloader activated and use a tiny hall sensor inside. If there is no magnet, the clonix runs normally. Or test the power supply when it comes from the other connector using a diode.
>Your last question ("the" question), is quite more >difficult indeed (thanks for your hint Raymond, I know >it's a great config! BTW you're always wellcomed in my
I don't know much about the calculator, so I can't answer at the moment.
I have HPIL adapter, 2 X-Mem (I hope to fit them into one), a card reader so I could end with:
1 - X-MEM(double) 3 - CLONIX
2 - HPIL adapt 4 - CardReader / CLONIX2
Surely I need HPIL stuff, so EXT I/O and maybe DEVIL ROM should be present, but other than this, who knows.
Raymond gave a great config, but where to grab rom images is another story.
I was thinking that a second CLONIX could be used to directly get the wild I/O I am researching...
there are several I/O free on it, isn't right? Did you keep the SPI free? I am playing with a SecureDigital right now...
Giuseppe Marullo
giuseppe.marullo@iname.com
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