Guru
Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: AustraliaPosts: 3364
| Posted: 07:40am 14 Jun 2011 |
Sorry Pito, I did not spot your post and should have replied. And thanks Don for filling in the gap.
You can use the standard Maximite firmware (currently at V2.4) without video or a keyboard (or without USB for that matter). If the firmware cannot find them it just ignores them. So, nothing special required there.
As Don mentioned, I have plans for a mini Maximite that will have just USB and an optional micro SD card connector. The I/O pins, the video, keyboard, etc will be brought out onto pin headers so that you can still connect that stuff if you want to. It should be about the size of the business card and will be intended for use as an inexpensive "plug-in" brain for all sorts embedded projects (burglar alarm, battery monitor, solar panel controller, etc, etc).
To support this I plan to extend the Maximite firmware so that the BASIC program can be saved in the PIC32's internal flash and this will automatically execute on start up (ie, no SD card required). With the addition of PWM, serial, I2C and other protocols (to be developed) this would make a very powerful and low cost brain that could be used for many projects.
An important aspect is that the mini-Maximite and the full Maximite will run exactly the same firmware so you can develop on the larger Maximite and just copy your BASIC program to the mini version (via USB) when you are done.
The ETA is the end of the year. By the way, this design is currently just on paper... so anything might change as I work through the issues and the software required.
Geoff
Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net