[En-Nut-Discussion] Feedback and Ethernet Controllers

[Mike Cornelius]

Hi Harald and all,

NutKPrint
---------
I do use the interrupt driven uart routines extensivly for my application
but I also use KPrint for debugging, I've not moved all my code over to the
new style Print(0... methodology (guess I probably should) but for
readability and maintenance purposes I like for it to be fairly obvious what
code is debug related and what is application, KPrint makes it fairly
obvious to the reader that this is a debug statement.

When you say you use JTAG for debugging do you mean that there is a way to
send debug statements to the messages tab (or something) in AVR Studio ?
that would be very cool !
If so I've not discovered this and would LOVE to know how it's done.

If you just mean setting breakpoints etc in AVR Studio well that doesn't
really replace the sort of progressive debug info you can get using the
uart.


SYN
---
The approach you sugest sounds good.
I'lld not thought about the knock-on effects.
Let's give it a try..

Round Trip Time
---------------
Because I use both ethernet and PPP/GPRS I'm going to have to do something
here eventually but right for now things work OK just maybe not optimally.
In a related issue I probably also need to implement Nagel both for
performance and because GPRS data costs about 1-2 cents a kByte so tinygrams
are pretty expensive.

Retransmission Timer
--------------------
Another one bites the dust.....



With regard to ethernet contollers
----------------------------------

I have a Crystal CS8900 driver that is probably full of bugs but seems to
work I've mainly be concentrating on my PPP driver though, these probably
still need some work but if anybody has a use for them I'm happy to make
them available.

Also hand soldering these fine pitch parts is actually pretty easy here's
how I do it maybe my technique will work for you too:-

1 - Apply a line of solder paste along all pads at 90 degrees to the pads,
don't even try to keep it to the pads only, it won't stick to the solder
resist (that's why they call it solder resist I guess).

2 - place the chip on the pads and solder one pin in one corner with a
regular soldering iron with a flat tip.

3 - nudge the opposite corner to allign the pins with the pads, if they
allign tack them down, if not you might need to re-position your first pin.

4 - once things are alligned just go ahead and solder all pins.

5 - once all pins are soldered come back with some desolder braid and clean
up any bridges and you're done.

Regards,

Mike