[time-nuts] Rick Karlquist's programming

WB6BNQ wb6bnq at cox.net
Fri Aug 28 20:46:25 UTC 2009


Hi Rick,

I looked at the ROBOT software and was really UNimpressed because the material
presented was aimed at selling books.  Even though it has the standard BASIC
statements, the only stuff shown on the WEB site was trying to impress you with
running some ROBOT around the floor.  I think their explanatory material is quite
lacking.

On the other hand, the BBC BASIC site was quite impressive !  They have the complete
manual on line.  In looking through it, it seemed to properly and completely cover
all aspects of the BBC BASIC environment.  It was written clearly and each section I
read was striaght forward, simple and to the point.

The worse thing with programming languages is the poorly written material.  I think
that the BBC efforts deserve very high marks.

Bill....WB6BNQ

"Richard (Rick) Karlquist" wrote:

> The XT-Nano-XXL looks very interesting, and the price is good.
>
> With these kinds of hardware devices, the question always
> arises as to what to use on the other end to talk to the
> device.  I see that ak-nord has a virtual com port driver,
> which many vendors have.  It would also be interesting to
> see if two of the XT-Nano-XXL devices could talk directly
> to each other without any computers being involved.  The
> manual talks about a "tunnel" mode, but shows the Nano
> connected to the box with 2 serial ports.
>
> The other problem I have with these kinds of devices is
> what to do about software to talk to them.  Some devices
> come with free software that has basic functionality to
> debug the hardware.  What I would really like to do is
> to get an API and build a simple interface program with radio
> buttons, etc that control relays etc.  The problem is
> that I am not a programmer.  I keep looking for a tutorial
> that explains how to do simple Visual Basic or something,
> but I consistently run into two showstoppers.  1.  The tutorials
> cover only the VB or C++ language, and not the mechanics
> of compiling, linking, libraries, and .dll files.  2.
> The tutorials assume the program talks only to the "console"
> (keyboard mouse and monitor).  No discussion of connecting
> to the LAN and interfacing with the hardware.  What I
> have seen written about these topics is incomprehensible
> to me as an analog engineer.
>
> Rick Karlquist, N6RK
>
> Christian Vogel wrote:
> > Hi Dave,
> >
> >> Likewise, there are also versions of MCU's with TCP stacks available
> >> too, as well as things like this...
> >> http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/embedded-device-servers/xport.html
> >>
> > ...
> >
> >> Basically, an embedded TCP/IP<>Serial adapter, with bells on!  So you
> >> can use existing device designs that would use a serial link to the
> >> host, and "add" network connectivity for that need, with no (well,
> >> little) design overhead.
> >
> > When I was looking for something simmilar, a relative recommended
> >
> >   http://www.ak-nord.de/ak/product_info.php?products_id=33
> >
> > which he uses at work to access interfaces internal to their product
> > during testing. It should be what the "xport" is, but adding i2c and spi
> > ports. Unfortunately, I didn't find time to procure one, or even test it.
> >
> >         Chris
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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