Hi Dmitry,

This is P. K. Srivastava from JSH Technologies (India).

This is to inform you that right now we are using Analog Devices ADuC series micro controllers for our products which are being used in the industrial environment. We have come across your product 3 year back in an exhibition here in India. Since then we started to use DS1102 and EM1206 to convert our serial data to TCP/IP.

We are in process of major revamp of our product design to increase its capability. In this course we bought your EM2001 module and some other products from Toradex and Analog Devices. Since the micro controller used on EM2001 is capable enough to cater our current requirement we started to explore its capability using your programming environment. Though the chip is capable to do time critical application but we are unable to utilize those capacities as the same is not available using Tibbo Basic/C.

We tried the on_sys_time event for our requirement but there are two issues in the implementation:

1. The minimum time interval available is 10 mili second, we require less than that up to 1 mili second. The Time critical code to be executed is taking approximate 80 to 200 uSec (80 uSec in case of 1 miliSecond interval) on each call.

2. We have noticed that the time between two event is not accurate and same every time as well as there are some missing events. We checked with logic analyzer for 1 second time and found that 10 to 15% events are getting missed.

We had also tried to use INT0 to INT7 pin and interrupt handler On_io_int(linestate As Byte) by providing fixed duration pulse from Tektronix Function generator to check the execution of interrupt event handler and found that it is also not getting executed  on time and there is also some events got missed.

Is there any possibility to configure and use ARM core timer and/or interrupt for these cases.

I have also dropped an mail to Allan. Your early response will be highly appreciated, as it will help us finalizing the core system and development environment for our future designs.

Waiting for your prompt and positive reply.

Regards

Just a last comment about the soldering / plugging into the Tibbo main modules: you wrote in the post (and the site reports something very similar)

A Tibbo Project PCB is the foundation of TPS devices.

Available in two sizes – medium and large – each board carries a CPU, memory, an Ethernet port, power input for +5V regulated power, and a number of sockets for Tibbit Modules and Connectors.

Following the common sense (and - sure - putting not too much attention to the real meaning) and trying to think like a hobbyist or maker (but maybe an engineer too) looking to the terms PCB and sockets the most probable idea is something for soldering, against the "pluggable" (yes, bad term) and plug-and-run terms. Better to add "no soldering is needed"

Enrico

Looking forward for updates on the already missing or partial parts

Enrico

Hello again Enrico,

it is great that we are talking. My mode doesn't get ruined because someone has offered an honest opinion. The path greatness lies through a lot of critical comments. Yours were very constructive. I am happy that you took time to write them.

Yes, we have released this new Linux board. Cooking Node.js support for it at the moment. I suppose this is very modern and some users out there will find this appealing.

Keep in touch and thank you for your time!

D.

Hello Dimitry,

I am happy that you have take in account my considerations as positive critics instead of something aiming to "destroy" your product. As a matter of fact what I have tried to do was a few words sort of virtual road test on your products. IMHO on top detail that is missed in your post and almost everywhere is the customers target, that as you explain in your previous comment is more industrial than maker and hobbyist.

Now let me answer in detail citing your message.

thank you for taking your time to write this detailed comment. There is one part I really do not understand -- the part about the soldering and using just once. Tibbits PLUG into our mainboards. There is no soldering involved. There are rear-entry connectors on the back of our boards. The entire system is, essentially, soldering-free.

This is my mistake. Frankly this is not very clear in the product specifications and in my opinion, it is one of the first things that should be underlined. Consider that users read few and rarely go in depth if not really very interested.

Yes, our devices primarily target industrial control and data collection applications. For example, in one of the systems installed by our customers, TPS devices count the number of cars passing through drive-through lanes of fast food restaurants. In another application, the TPS is used to monitor the operating parameters of a cell tower.

This explain many things. In the industrial environment, where I have worked just with embedded components and scalable circuits your pricing is more affordable. Remain the point that are not so clear the industrial range specifications and application field (e.g. vibration, dust, humidity etc.)

- Large LED. These are specifically for indicating different device conditions in the industrial applications. You don't always need to use such LEDs. You get this Tibbit only when you want to be able to see the status of your device from afar. For normal status indication you have 7 LEDs right on the mainboard.

This is another point that has sense just in the case of the "industrial view" of your products, that seems to be the right one. Same for the other critics/considerations to the other components.

- High-power power supply Tibbit. IT IS REGULATED. Gives you about 3 amps of current. Very necessary sometimes. Imagine that you filled your TPS with high-power relays. When actuated simultaneously they will draw quite some current! And if you added GPRS, this would increase your current requirements by a lot as well.

Again, in an industrial environment application this has definitely more sense.

Regarding the choice of programming languages. Call me old-fashioned, but I do think that C++ has no place in the world of real-time control. C++ is an excellent choice for application development, but hardcore control stuff should not be done in C++. As for Tibbo BASIC, well, it is really well-suited to the kind of applications that people develop on TPS. I often experience a kind of language arrogance -- what??? BASIC??? I am WAYYYY ABOVE this!!! My answer? It is just a tool, one of many tools in your toolbox. Sometimes it is suitable, and sometimes not... and this is why we have C. C++? I really don't think so. There are better choices to expand our list, I think.

Should place some order. I am an "old" developer and I think I saw a lot of basic languages versions, including compiled ones. It is not a question of "vintage" language at all but it is a question of the target. Rethinking your entire product approach (that IMHO remain to be completed here and there but it is normal as it is just born) the industrial applications target rarely works with the new languages (maybe Python the last generations of hardware engineers) and in this case BASIC will fit a large audience. Nothing to say about C vs C++ in the embedded world I almost agree with this assumption.

BTW, interesting instead the Linux based more advanced boards that are in your catalogue.

Despite the schematics and/or sample circuits are not yet been published, the idea to publish them is something really interesting, especially for the industrial world.

Enrico