----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alberto I2PHD
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 10:40 AM
Subject: [soft_radio] USB tuning knob


> A question to you all about the use of a USB knob.

This is slightly off-course, but it might be interesting to the hard-core 
homebrewers.

This fall, Microchip announced a "Graphics PICtail" board for their Explorer 
16.  Santa brought be one of those, and I've been playing with it the past 
few days.  The Graphics PICtail is nothing more than an QVGA display with a 
touchscreen that mounts on the Explorer 16.  I haven't found a bare 
QVGA/Touchscreen cheaper, but then I haven't explored the space all that 
hard.

Anyway, Microchip's graphics library includes a control that does a very 
credible job of providing a spinner knob on the touch screen.  Although the 
Explorer 16 does include USB, I suspect a more appropriate use would be on a 
purpose-built board.  But by providing the knob on a touch screen, the real 
estate could be put to other purposes at other times.

The Microchip (freee) graphics library seems to be pretty decent, and not 
all *THAT* difficult to get one's head around.  One could imagine a very 
fancy SDR in quite a small form factor, with a little design work.

72/73 de WB8RCR    http://www.qsl.net/wb8rcr
didileydadidah     QRP-L #1446 Code Warriors #35

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