[Elecraft] Saving K2 VFO modes

[AC6JA at aol.com]

Thanks for the update.  This will remain on my wish list.
Until then, looks like it might be time to upgrade to the K3 as it seems to 
 have all that I want!
Thanks for all your hard work that brings us  joy!

Mike  AC6JA
 
 
In a message dated 5/3/2009 3:39:06 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
n6kr at elecraft.com writes:

Mike-WE0H wrote:

> You got my vote on open source or finding  someone to work on updates 
> on occasion...

Mike (et  al),

The K2's present MCU is maxxed (no code space left). That's the  main 
reason there's been no further development on it. But it's also a  very 
mature product. Requests for changes or additions are very rare. And  
just to complicate things, there's no way to upgrade K2 firmware over  
the serial port, as on the K3. K2 firmware updates at present involve  
swapping in a new chip.

There is, however, a newer PIC available  that I believe is 
pin-compatible with the K2's that would double the code  space and allow 
for a "boot loader" (to make it electronically  upgradeable). I'm 
looking forward to building the code for this part and  trying it out 
sometime.

Regarding open sourcing the K2 code: It  would take far more of my time 
to prepare for this than to just make any  needed changes myself. To 
pack everything the K2 does into a small amount  of code space required 
that much of it be written in assembler, which is  inherently more 
abstruse than C (etc.). It also required the creation of a  proprietary, 
heavily optimized real-time OS. There are a dozen or so state  machines 
and a unique interrupt structure where every cycle is carefully  
counted.

Even though the code is well-documented, I'd want to  create 
theory-of-ops and maintenance documentation before I tried to hand  it 
off to another programmer. This is often necessary for projects where  
you don't have the luxury of writing everything in an encapsulated,  
object-oriented language, such as on a PC with virtually unlimited code  
space.

Meanwhile, I save all of the suggestions I receive (or see  posted) 
regarding future K2  functionality.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

---

http://www.elecraft.com

______________________________________________________________
Elecraft  mailing list
Home:  http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help:  http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post:  mailto:Elecraft at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by:  http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list:  http://www.qsl.net/donate.html


**************The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy 
Steps! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222376998x1201454298/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=M
ay5309AvgfooterNO62)