An Alternative Maximite

Author	Message
Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: Australia Posts: 3364	Posted: 10:24pm 14 Jun 2011         jebz said   Hello Geoff. Can you also consider adding "Peek" and "Poke" to the basic commands. This would allow serial comms and other peripherals to be used even if they didn't have current support. I have resisted adding PEEK/POKE but I can see that I will have to give in. It is a very popular request. The reason I have held back is that there are a number of issues with messing around with the memory space. For a start, the only way to find out where to PEEK/POKE in the working memory (RAM) is by digging through the memory map produced by the compiler and that is no easy task. Microchip could not have made it more obtuse if they had tried. Even worse, the memory map will change with each version of the firmware. Secondly, the PIC32 is very sensitive to an illegal memory access. It throws (in MIPS terminology) an exception and the only way to handle that is to completely reset the CPU, thereby loosing the program in memory. So, if you made a mistake in typing in an address, you would instantly loose your program - not very friendly. But, it is a powerful tool for someone who wants to access features of the chip and is prepared to decipher the PIC32 manual so I will try to fit it in the next release (along with suitable caveats in the user manual). Geoff Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net