From: ActiveSystems <activesystems_at_caverock.net.nz>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 19:35:39 +1200

Hi

I was checking out the hw spec for the controller in the Jukebox (and
reading some of the old postings to this group).

Pin PB10 which the remote is connected to is usually configured as serial
comms port so it can receive async data from the remote.

The pins on port B can also be configured as a general I/O so it could quite
easily output data to the remote as well. Good thing about this is that we
could use this outgoing data to run an external display.

It should be relatively easy to intermittently reconfigure PB10 as an output
pin and throw out some data to the remote, then pop it back in receive mode
to watch for commands from the remote. If the outgoing data was at 100kbps
or so then it would be unlikely that the player will miss any remote
commands. - 50 bytes of data will only take 5ms. Each line of text to be
displayed on the remote can have a byte or so of control data saying if it's
to be scrolled, scrolling speed etc.

I'd be quite happy to do the remote end of things - sw + pcb etc for people
wanting to build their own.

My question is how hard would this be to implement on the Jukebox? If there
are any existing tasks that are executed at 100kHz or so then I would think
that you could use that proc to bit-bang any waiting data out PB10. Can
connect to a UART on the remote micro to receive the data. Would just have
to check that the o/p on the Archos remote is buffered then it should still
work.

thoughts?

Hamish
Received on 2002-10-03