3 Feb
2021
3 Feb
'21
6:06 a.m.
On Feb 3, 2021, at 2:51 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 09:20:01AM -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
[...]
I haven't used RPi at all, since when I looked at it some years ago the SOC technical
information was secret. Contrast the BeagleBone, for which there is a 5000 page manual.
In any case, for work like this an Ardiuno might be sufficient and quite possibly easier
to use. I've used the ARM based Arduinos, they have quite a lot more memory, faster
execution, and native USB. In fact (if you should need it for something else) host side
USB, not just device side. The Adafruit "Trinket" is great for cases where not
much I/O is needed; there are a variety of others that have a dozen or so I/O connections,
all for $10 or thereabouts.
paul
When I last proposed the STM32F407, I was met
with "Oh, but the Blue Pill
is cheaper". Okay, use the Blue Pill, but my code won't work with it. Not
once has anyone contacted me and said "I'd like to try my hand at doing
this, what can you tell me?". I've described the methodology of using an
MCU elsewhere several times.
I have a pile of Blue Pill boards, and using it to read floppies was an
obvious application. However after running the numbers, it turned out there
isn't enough RAM to buffer an entire track from a HD floppy. It also has a
broken USB implementation just to liven things up a bit.
The Raspberry Pi Pico has a similar price to the Blue Pill and seems a much
better machine for this task, although I haven't combed through its
reference manual yet.