Quote:
Originally posted by JoeJ
HC11F1 is a nice controller but you need to build a fairly complex board to hold it. An E9 would make more sense because you could run it single chip mode.
We are using a PIC16F877A. This is a flash part with 8K of program memory on chip. 38 I/O pins and a very easy assembly language (35 instructions). Also the HC11F1 is a PLCC which is hard to build on protoboard. PIC comes in DIP. Programing tools are a free download. For $100 from digikey the 16F877 has an in-circuit debugger.
|
The HC11F1 has a "Single-Chip" mode, too. I am not running it in this. Guess how much "glue-logic" I need? One hex inverter, and one RS-232 trasciever (MAX-232, if that counts as glue).
I'll post pictures and schematics soon.
I do agree that the PIC is king of simplicity. If the PIC does everything you ever need, then indeed, it is superior. I went with the HC11 becasue I don't want to find myself at the compition going: "WOAH, that other team did somthing REALLY COOL with their system. Too bad I don't have the [cpu power/eeprom space/whatever] to do it." I really almost went with some x86 system, but the glue-logic starts to get heavy real fast there. Not to mention I love the flexibility of the HC11 address space.
You can get PLCC->DIP adapters for about $20. Can't beat that PIC ICE for $100, though. That's good. If you run the HC11F1 in single-chip mode, you have I/O lines up the wazoo! In fact, you can use unused control lines *even in other chip modes* as general purpose I/O. Programming tools for the HC11 are, as far as I know, free. Does the PIC have on-die A/D conversion? 8 Channels of it?
Either way, for the kind of work we are asking these systems to do, I think either chip is a good choice. I just wish there were more teenaged hardware geeks around!
Good luck with your 'bot!