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INTERNET, OR ELSE!

by Tom Cantrell

Start ý Implosion ý Little Big Chip ý Fully ARMed ý Pumped ý Stay Tuned ý Pico Surfer ý More the Merrier ý SloMo ý PIC2000 ý Easy Software? ý Cup of Java ý Purple Hayes ý GOTO Web ý Sources and PDF

EASY SOFTWARE?

I know the concept of easy software may strike you as oxymoronic. Unlike hardware, where Mooreýs law has meant a free lunch for everyone touched by silicon, software development seems to involve just as much cursing and head scratching as ever.

Fortunately, the EIC presentations offered a glimmer of hope. Chris Waters from Scenix described a flashy demo board built around a stamp-sized SX module (see Photo 10) with a touchscreen LCD and wireless RF link thrown in.

Photo 10ýWhen youýve got a lot of MIPS, everything looks like a software problem. Scenix exploits their performance advantage with virtual peripherals that have software performing tasks (such as Ethernet) usually handled in hardware.

Thatýs pretty whizzy, but the most interesting thing about the design isnýt the hardware, but rather the software that is written almost entirely in Java, relying on a tiny JVM crammed into one of its SX chips (see Figure 2).

Figure 2ýLike a single shot of espresso, the Scenix JVM doesnýt make the SX runneth over, but itýll definitely get you going.

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