Re: LF: PIC based designs

[M0FMT <m0fmt@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hi all

 

This is an open letter to all PIC based designers form a frustrated constructor.......

 

"....

As with all construction articles that contain a Micro Processor chip is that  the one vital ingredient to make it is the HEX code. It is as vital as the 0.01 mF decoupling capacitor that goes across the Vcc to ground.  

 

It is IMHO and most guys I have spoken to over the air that a construction article that has a PIC in the BOM is so much wasted paper. The Radcom being a typical magazine that delights in publishing the schematic of a PIC based project but doesn't publish the Hex script. My guess is the so called editors have no construction experience and do not understand the significance of what they are publishing. I think peoples hearts sink when they look down the BOM and see 16F84 or what ever.

 

The people who look at these sorts of articles are constructor like me not Code designers otherwise they wouldn't need a construction article at all, because they would be busily designing there own code .... wouldn't they. I have a G3---  friend who is a great constructor. Nothing in his shack is commercial ready made. He has a prodigious output of excellent TX and RX designs, keyers and SDR projects, nothing with a PIC. I have encouraged him to take advantage of the facility to be found in a PIC based project but he considers them black magic. Because of the RADCOM and other mags that trot these PIC based projects out with little concern if any one actually builds them they are referred to as space fillers of little interest and are intensely frustrating. This sort of incomplete article can be an ego trip for the writer with the publishing editor oblivious to what is in the big blank square in the middle of the schematic.

 

So this mail is an appeal to you and all other PIC based designers please, please publish the HEX code. It doesn't take much space on a page and simple for someone to scan the code and use word recognition software to convert it along with a bit of manual editing if necessary. Otherwise I would say don't bother publishing your designs.

 

Sorry for the venting but just going through yet another "Oh B*!$$er it's got a PIC in it" article that looked promising.

73 es GL Pete M0FMT IO91UX