On 5/25/23 04:52, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > USB interfacing is hard, but SD cards are a lot simpler. So use a card > reader thing to transfer the files to an SD card and design an > interface for that to ISA bus.
That's my approach with my own setups. 32GB SD cards are very inexpensive and quite fast. So, rather than depend on a USB interface to transfer data real-time to a PC, I use the SD card as intermediate storage, later transferring the data off using either a card reader or YModem-1K via serial port or USB. The side benefit is that the SD card is large enough that I'll have a hard time filling it with things like floppy images over the next few years--so I've got an automatic backup. USB (or serial) is used mostly for commands and status (TTY emulator) and can be run from a cheap tablet. The MCU I use does have ethernet support, but I've found that to be unnecessary--the data volume isn't that great. For the programming language, I stick with C, not C++, not Python and plain old makefiles--that's what the support libraries are written in. I don't use an IDE, lest I become reliant on one--a text editor will do. I document the heck out of code. Over the 50 or so years that I've been cranking out gibberish, it's nice to go back to code that I wrote 30 or 40 years ago and still be able to read it. I'm all too aware of the changing trends in the industry--and how quickly they can change. I remember when there was a push in embedded coding not long ago to use Ada--where is that today? It's not that I resist technological change--I can and have written C++ and Python (what version?). On my desk sits a MicroPy board. I look forward to advances in technology, but I'm also aware of how "bleeding edge" trends can wither and get lost almost overnight. How many of you program in Zig? I imagine that in about 5 years, the main conversation will be about using an AI to write code. Of course, there will be a new language to instruct the AI... --Chuck
