A while ago the
Maximite project caught my eye and I posted that it could be a candidate for use as a master. This is what I said;
The Maximite is a Pic32 chip with a basic interpreter programmed in. Output is composite video (or VGA) and input is a ps2 keyboard or usb. It also has a SD card slot for loading programs and storing data. What he has done is recreate something like the old TRS80 computer on a Pic32, including a BASIC interpreter that has line numbers
, how retro can you get, but with the added benefit of 20 I/O pins from the pic being available. Yes the interpreted basic won't run as fast as a complied program, but this is a 32 bit 80mhz processor. And being able to program your master software in a free version of basic is nice, but with this you don't even need a computer to do the editing, just plug in a keyboard and away you go. At the moment though it has one glaring omission, no serial comms.
But he has said this will be added in a firmware update, so I will keep an eye on this project.
Yesterday V2.6 of the firmware was released and the Maximite now has 2 serial ports, SPI and I2C support.
Sadly no Dallas one wire support (yet?) so the temp sensors we are using won't work, but I haven't been particularly impressed by them anyway, they are pricey at around £3 each (not much individually but if you want to use 10 of them it starts to add up) and suffer from interference on my Matiz under hard acceleration. This project has definitely grown some legs, a number of expansion boards are available and has a very active community also releasing code (one person has even replaced MMBasic with UNIX
) But the MMBasic is what I am interested in. It has 2 types of variable, string and float, so none of the fancy hoops to go through making sure integer maths don't overflow.
It also has timers, frequency counters, etc. all available. No more having to set config bits or learn the intricacies of a different pic micro. Basically the code needs to be ported from pbp to MMBasic and an expansion/interface board made to go between the maximite and the vehicle. Future or different versions of the master would only require changing the interface board and updating the code instead of a complete new pcb.
I am tempted to purchase one and start some coding, but will resist the urge for the moment and get some other projects done first.