15 Jun
2015
15 Jun
'15
9:50 p.m.
On Jun 15, 2015, at 21:28, tony duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
As am I. I've learnt a heck of a lot since I started (there is a common myth
that there is something magic about a processor. This hobby has taught
me to understand quite a few at the gate level). And the day I stop learning
is the day I am in a pine box.
In my opinion, the magic is inside the transistor. Once you bottle enough magic to make a
good transistor, the rest is pretty straightforward. :)
As an aside, I am not overly enamoured by the RPi. I
think there are
possibly better alternatives like the Beagleboards (?) which I need to
investigte.
Shockingly, I agree with you! The RPi is neat for what it is, but I have a mental hangup
on openness, which the Beaglebone Black has more of (i.e., I think I could buy the main
chip on it from DigiKey, unlike the Broadcom chip on the RPi. Not that I'm eager to
route my own SDRAM bus... that's actually kind of hard, particularly with the
open-source PCB tools I use for home projects). The BeagleBone also has lots more
delicious IOs.
This is one of my main dislikes with USB. It is so
complicated that you
have to use a microcontroller. Unlike any of the more sane interfaces that
you can implement with simple logic if you want to.
I have a love/hate relationship with USB. I liked moving away from having to figure out
which way the danged plugs were wired at both ends for any given pair of devices. But on
the other hand, a UART is dirt simple to implement, and I still use them for debug ports
even on vastly complex FPGA-based stuff. I don't see async serial dying off any time
soon.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/