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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : EEV Blog
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| plasma Guru  Joined: 08/04/2012 Location: GermanyPosts: 437 |
@ whitewizzard and other Micromite Hardware Guys ... what di you think about sending a working Micromite to the famous EEV Blog Mailbag Monday ? its a good way to show the world your creation and to grow the Micromite i think ... ? |
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Zonker Guru Joined: 18/08/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 767 |
Yes..!! Let's send him some hardware, Geoff's manual, the full boat..! I got an extra 28-pinner unless WW wants to send him his awesome module.. Let's DO this Gents..! |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2949 |
Gday Plasma, IMHO that is a hit and miss risk. Dave Jones is SUPER CRITICAL of just about anything. Whilst I respect him and he is very knowledgeable, I feel that if you get him on the wrong day he could tear strips off before he really gets down to the nitty gritty of it all. I know Dave used to frequent this board, so "Hi Dave" if you are reading this. He is quite likely to see the word BASIC and Go "`Yeah! Old crap ... WHY??? I just dont get it etc etc" and there ends any good will you may have been expecting. I feel the problem with Dave's reviews is that he really expects that every product be of the highest quality, irregardless of the cost, and designed down to a near NASA standard, which is not where the our field lies, ie. in the hobbyist realm. He may not even look at it any further. All that aside, if as a group we feel that it is worth a chance, I am prepared to offer a blank MuP Ver 2 (yes there will be a V2) and a built up unit, if someone is prepared to offer a printed MicroMite manual. I would prefer that we sent off several `flavours' for him to review if we did so. Then what program would we put in the uMite? I assume something that drives an LCD and reads a temp sensor etc. It would need a group input as I am sure no one would want to see any code written by me with "line numbers" Yuk!!!  sent off for the review. I am sure Dave couldn't afford the time and effort to read about the MicroMite and write his own code without having a good demo to lure his attention.
If we are to take a vote I vote NO! Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
I have to endorse what Mick has said. I sent Dave an early true Maximite design, and didn't get a good result back. 
I could comment a lot more, but I'll leave it right there. If you really want to do it, you will have to put in the hard yards to convince him. Cheers Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| Zonker Guru Joined: 18/08/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 767 |
Ok Gent's... Maybe your right about this one... To bad... I think it could have help spread the news about uMites... |
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| Greg Fordyce Senior Member  Joined: 16/09/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 153 |
The Maximite got a mention on The Amp Hour nearly 3 years ago. episode 44 They have guests nearly every other week. It would be great if someone could get Geoff on the show talking about the mites. Greg. |
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| plasma Guru Joined: 08/04/2012 Location: GermanyPosts: 437 |
maybe he is mad enough to hate this. ok bad idea. |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
Yeah I agree. A first it seamed like a good idea, but I do remember watching some of his video's where I felt his comments were a bit unfair. Maybe wait until the micromite has been out in the wild for a few months and built up a following, which I'm confident it will do. I like Greg's idea, get Geoff on the show. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9586 |
I concur. I actually LIKE a lot of Dave's videos, and his personality on and off camera is really hilarious at times, especially if he likes something, but by the same token, he can be really scathing to the point of slander really, on something he does NOT like. That is his choice, and it is his blog, and so he is free to do that. I watched his teardown video of the cheap $30 video-camera the other day - this really IS a lump crud IF you are comparing it to a high-quality camera such as the one Dave uses to film his blog, but if all you want is the cheapest of the cheap video cameras - perhaps as a gift for a young child or something, they DO work and do what is advertised, but Dave is right - the picture quality sucks, but I thought he was a little over-the-top-critical on that one as an example. Sure, it is a cheap crap camera, but it should be reviewed on it's merits and with respect to it's cost, NOT by comparison to a camera that probably cost the best part of a grand(I don't know what camera Dave uses to film his blog). Apples and oranges. That said, I still like a-lot of his videos, and he is an entertaining presenter. As for the uM and sending him one to play with - my vote is also NO, unless you can pre-load some quite spectacular demo to peak his interest from the get-go. I watched his video on comparing PIC to Atmel, and he was neutral there I thought, pointing out pros and cons of both, and basically saying that YOU choose the one that suits you best at the time depending on what features you need, which I thought was fair enough, and good advise. So, he DOES use different MCU's, so sending him a uM to play with is a nice idea, but I worry that it might just backfire. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
I have started getting some emails about Dave's blog and me sending him an early version Maximite, so I felt the easiest way of explaining this is to give you the old thread to read for yourselves: http://www.thebackshed.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3887&KW =EEVblog BTW. there was never a video review done. The Amp Hour 22.22 minute mark. Quotes: I like it! It's neat! Who is still programming in Basic? Just don't put it on your resume. Cheers Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2949 |
Gday Plasma, I LOVE the irony of that statement.. 
And NO it was NOT a bad idea.. I would love the uMite to get a fair review, its just that I dont feel Dave will be fair with a BASIC micro controller.. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4033 |
I think I'd leave it as is. If it went before a wider audience with negative reviews, that wouldn't help. If it got a positive one I think that might be much worse! Why? Because a lot of people would rush to get one but they will NOT bother to find anything else out first. I've seen this with Allwinner devices (where they even post on the Linux kernel lists ffs) and with Olimex boards in general. Sadly they tend to have NO hardware or software knowledge, are not in any sense engineers, and also a "feed me, I'm lazy beyond belief" attitude. Currently, I think the people who find the mites seem generally to be non-lazy and willing to learn, whether that's hardware or software or whatever. Granted, the "closed" / open debate periodically rears its head (witness the recent, now locked thread) and that'll not go away as long as things aren't fully open but even so it seems survivable - now. If there were vast hordes of very keen but ignorant/lazy people I dread to think what the posts would be like. I'm not sure where this leaves people who want to sell boards and make a profit so need quantity sales. Better than with lots of disgruntled buyers who thought they'd bought something it never was and said it wasn't... Oh - I'm not meaning that Dave fits any of this or would be a cause. At the moment it seems like the people using mites understand that Basic is plenty fast enough for their needs and the boards just work for what they want. Has to be good. John |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2428 |
actually, most of what dave jones said in 2011 seemed quite reasonable, and i think it is telling that the colour maximite has an arduino-style set of sockets as he suggested. the one change i would have made to the colour maximite would have been to have the arduino sockets extending through the top of the box. if i were sending dave something, i'd send him either just the pre-programmed 32MX150 28-pin sdip in a tube, or said dip plugged into a scrap of veroboard with the necessary cap and pins wired together appropriately. nothing else. the most impressive thing about the micromite is the bare-minimum of stuff required to create a working system. all the boards that folks on here have created pile on extra peripherals, connectors, and options that detract from the purity of this simplicity. the above is my opinion, i hope others can respect this. rob :-) |
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vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
He he, that would be a provocation! He he, send it for the "Mail bag" section  Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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elproducts Senior Member Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
Just for the record, I originally suggested the Arduino connectors right here on the list and was met with many "what's Arduino?" And "why do we need that?". I was sorry I suggested it at first. I agree with the connectors through the box as I did in my box design for my cgcolormax2 based maximite BBX which got many negative comments here as well. So I mostly just send my ideas to Geoff since he's been open minded to them. I might get flamed for this post as well but so be it. Every time I see a shield plugged into a maximite I'm happy to see I contributed something. 
www.elproducts.com |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9586 |
Now that we are on to the MicroMite Mark 2, and it has been well published in Silicon Chip magazine, what are the members thoughts of sending Dave one of the MicroMite2 chips? The device is quite mature and stable now over what it was when this thread was started. However, my original thoughts on this(sending one to Dave) are now divided. Comments and thoughts? Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4033 |
It's liable to get compared with RPi / Arduino and it's easier to find negatives than positives, the way newspapers and journos do. I'd continue letting interested people stumble on 'mites or if more publicity is wanted then post announcements on relevant sites/forums. BASIC has an unenviable reputation whether deserved or not and those who are anti can be very vocal and nasty. I suspect it's as fast as python i.e. "fast enough" for many uses (*) but such details even if true may be ignored. Benchmarks are liable to be done against python on RPi (700MHz!) or C. D'oh. (*) because CPU power is "plenty" to get the I/O done And then there will be those who insist on an IDE, symbolic debugger, etc. John |
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G8JCF Guru Joined: 15/05/2014 Location: United KingdomPosts: 676 |
It seems to me that there is considerable prejudice and snobbery against BASIC, ie real programmers use C/C++ and really hard core programmers do it in Assembler, BASIC is for hobbyists and dilettantes. There is always the "but one has to admit that BASIC has a low entry barrier, and is easy to get something up and running, but of course for serious stuff, well BASIC just runs out of road doesn't it" condescendingly expressed by the "experts" - I beg to differ, and all of us 'Miters would beg to differ. Now MMBasic 4.6 with CFunctions surely can take on just about anything which previously would have required C whilst still providing the simplicity, and approachability of BASIC. The uMite MKII is just MMBasic 4.6 in a PIC32MX170 chip, whereas the Maximite was a whole computer. There is nothing stopping anybody (Grogster, BigMik, Zonker, MatherP ... ??) laying out a PCB which incorporates a PIC32MX170 in Arduino format as far as I can tell. MMBasic 4.6 with CFunctions has all the speed/raw grunt-power required to match/exceed most Arduino platforms. And with this type of approach, it should be simple/easy to use/leverage the Arduino shields. Am I being too simplistic, missing something here ? Peter The only Konstant is Change |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9586 |
Thanks for the comments. Yes, you are both right about the bias towards BASIC. Why is that, exactly? Is it perhaps that original BASIC's were exactly that - basic, and not advanced enough to do many special things, and certainly not fast enough compared to machine code. That said, MMBASIC lets you do just about anything you can think of(especially now that Cfunctions are part of it), and the BASIC interpreter speed is still way fast enough to satisfy MOST people. Comparing MMBASIC with a BASIC from 20 years ago etc, is apples and oranges, surely, but I suppose that is inevitable with some people. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2949 |
Hi Lads, This has all been said before, I do NOT believe that Dave will give a fair appraisal of the wonderful MicroMite. In fact I feel his bias towards `basic' would probably turn him off before he even looks at it. All that said, If anyone is prepared to do all the ground preparation for a demonstration package to send Dave I am prepared to offer up a fully built and tested MuP to add to the package to send him. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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