Anyone built something practical with Cyberkit-043 or CY8C4247AZI-M485 ?

[martys]

At $10USD and free debugger/IDE, seems at first a good deal, but the chip in quan. <25 has a  high cost ($8.27) and can't be breadboarded easily upon a solderless breadboard, so development is clumsy without using the very large Cyberkit-043

It takes  lots of wires messily connecting to a test solderless breadboard.

Is there a better MCU choice that offers as good MIPS (>16MIPs)
>16K or better SRAM
Easier to configure peripherals like A2D, timers,counters, PWM, etc.
A free, unlimited use of available  flash RAM
Having no code limitations of compiler/output code size
Offering a free Windows development IDE that isn't full of gotcha's and bugs?
Having the convenience of a DIP MCU package to be able to pop into a large prototyping breadboard?

Is there a better/easier/more practical way?



In short, has anyone succeeded in overcoming the obstacles of using the Cypress IDE to make something really practical and useful? 

I am trying to develop my own code for accomplish speech recognition and make custom products to aid the handicapped.

[ShowKemp]

At $10USD and free debugger/IDE, seems at first a good deal, but the chip in quan. <25 has a  high cost ($8.27) and can't be breadboarded easily upon a solderless breadboard, so development is clumsy without using the very large Cyberkit-043

Why did you choose to buy it at first place? Any special peripheral you wanted to use?

Offering a free Windows development IDE that isn't full of gotcha's and bugs?

Is there a better/easier/more practical way?

In short, has anyone succeeded in overcoming the obstacles of using the Cypress IDE to make something really practical and useful? 

What bugs and gotchas did you found?

Having the convenience of a DIP MCU package to be able to pop into a large prototyping breadboard?

Most of the small PICs and AVR are available in DIP packages, i think there's a LPC micro available in DIP package.

The cheapest microcontrollers i know of are the STM32 devices, but afaik there's none in a DIP package, but there's a lot of cheap development boards on ebay with a form factor to plug in a breadboard.
You can configure the peripherals with the STMCubeMX and there's a free IDE based in Eclipse to develop, OpenSTM32 or AC6.

[dferyance]

Very odd that you are concerned over the price for a large quantity of a development kit. It isn't intended to be used in your products; only the chip is and that always is tons cheaper.

The Cypress IDE has been much simpler and easier to use and get going with compared to many other free IDE's I've tried. Everything has bugs, but anything reasonably complex and capable takes some time to learn too.

[martys]

Dferyance:  Tons cheaper? The chip is USD 8.43 quan<25 (Mouser) and  Dev board is USD 10 +ship + tax

I would like to make 8KSPS voice input sampling/chan, so A2D with 2 or more (maybe up to eight) channels.

ShowKemp: Need to do fast math for FFT etc. on two or more inputs and do SW to do fast input level normalizing of different bandpass filter outputs, all done best at the same time(crunching voice band inputs to MCU from external filters/analog circuitry).

Need to store voice sampled vals for later crunching, 8-Bit by 16KB min raw sampled data and need to store the crunching results to complete the voice recog process, such as sampled interval probability val of match, etc.

Want to keep power consumption low as possible, of course. (I know this kind of processing has a power cost)

[Brutte]

Having the convenience of a DIP MCU package to be able to pop into a large prototyping breadboard?

Buy an evaluation board with 0.1" pins that matches a breadboard.

As for Psocreator - several years ago I did try to download their free IDE but unfortunately they required registration.

[martys]

ShowKemp: Maybe drifting for a moment off topic, but:
What are the shortcomings of the toolchain you mention?
Does the STM toolchain and IDE you've mentioned support on-the-fly C-code syntax error detect in the IDE, cheap debugging tools, code optimization?
What about programming these STM32's? Is this simple and cheap?

I found that Cypress docs are scattered in terms of content, date, each too specific or too general(for families of a chip type), and for each, updates abound, but always difficult to get all the design info needed for a project, so difficult to complete a design when there is so many data sheets, one or more for each peripheral, not finding most everything in one or two documents or appnotes was a big bad suprise and quite able to be confusing and hard to manage. Try to compile something and something is reported out of date, must download update, update can be incompatible, etc.

Cypress example projects show a design philosophy that seems so proud to be able to do something without using any C-code!

Example videos by Cypress last usually are <3mins, but engineers know the devil is always in combining the small details.

I have serious problems sometimes understanding C-compiler detected errors of my code using the Cypress IDE and have trouble working with their low instance limits of modules needed to used as peripherals.

That being said, has anyone found the Cypress MCU/dev. environment  mentioned to be capable/desirable to make a viable product, to do something really practical?

It is no big deal to dim  the light of a LED or to be able detect your hand near a dangling wire on a pin with their chip(the sample first apps), but what about serious applications?

[ShowKemp]

ShowKemp: Maybe drifting for a moment off topic, but:
What are the shortcomings of the toolchain you mention?
Does the STM toolchain and IDE you've mentioned support on-the-fly C-code syntax error detect in the IDE, cheap debugging tools, code optimization?
What about programming these STM32's? Is this simple and cheap?

Yes the IDE syntax error detection, the debugging tools (STLink) are the cheapest debugging tool i know of (check ebay).
You can program the STM32 working directly with the registers, or use the code generated with the STMCubeMX tool, or use libopencm3 for example.

I found that Cypress docs are scattered in terms of content, date, each too specific or too general(for families of a chip type), and for each, updates abound, but always difficult to get all the design info needed for a project, so difficult to complete a design when there is so many data sheets, one or more for each peripheral, not finding most everything in one or two documents or appnotes was a big bad suprise and quite able to be confusing and hard to manage. Try to compile something and something is reported out of date, must download update, update can be incompatible, etc.

Yes, every peripheral have a datasheet, that's one of the things i like from the Psoc IDE, reading a 20ish page long pdf instead of a 1000 page TRM is easier for me.

Cypress example projects show a design philosophy that seems so proud to be able to do something without using any C-code!

I think that's the selling point of the psoc devices, doing most of the project using the programmable logic instead of C. that's why they are more expensive, the programmable logic.

Example videos by Cypress last usually are <3mins, but engineers know the devil is always in combining the small details.
I have serious problems sometimes understanding C-compiler detected errors of my code using the Cypress IDE and have trouble working with their low instance limits of modules needed to used as peripherals.
That being said, has anyone found the Cypress MCU/dev. environment  mentioned to be capable/desirable to make a viable product, to do something really practical?
It is no big deal to dim  light for a LED or to be able detect you hand near a dangling wire on a pin with their chip(the sample first apps), but what about serious applications?

I'm a hobbyist, can't help you with "serious" applications, the learning curve is steep but once you understand the work flow psoc is very easy to use.


i had some problems understanding some of your questions (i'm not a english native speaker). may be someone else can help you with:

I have serious problems sometimes understanding C-compiler detected errors of my code using the Cypress IDE and have trouble working with their low instance limits of modules needed to used as peripherals.

[andyturk]

Dferyance:  Tons cheaper? The chip is USD 8.43 quan<25 (Mouser) and  Dev board is USD 10 +ship + tax

I would like to make 8KSPS voice input sampling/chan, so A2D with 2 or more (maybe up to eight) channels.

ShowKemp: Need to do fast math for FFT etc. on two or more inputs and do SW to do fast input level normalizing of different bandpass filter outputs, all done best at the same time(crunching voice band inputs to MCU from external filters/analog circuitry).

Need to store voice sampled vals for later crunching, 8-Bit by 16KB min raw sampled data and need to store the crunching results to complete the voice recog process, such as sampled interval probability val of match, etc.

Want to keep power consumption low as possible, of course. (I know this kind of processing has a power cost)

The Cypress IDE is fine. It’s GCC under the hood anyway.

However, CY8C4247 is a wireless/rf chip, and you didn’t mention BLE or anything like that in your goals. It’s also a Cortex M0, which is not what you want for FFTs.

Based on what you said you’re building, you’ll likely want something with lots of SRAM for buffer space and a good DSP library. In the ARM family, a Cortex M4F would work well. Check out some of the STM32 discovery boards that have a more capable processor and a couple of microphones. That way, you can focus on the firmware first and not get stuck messing with an analog front end.

Check out Segger’s Embedded Studio for a good IDE. I think it may be “free” for educational/non-profit projects.

[Bruce Abbott]

In short, has anyone succeeded in overcoming the obstacles of using the Cypress IDE to make something really practical and useful? 

Sadly, no. It kept wanting to upgrade and I got sick of waiting over an hour for it do so, so I stopped at V3.2. Then every time I tried to work on a project the IDE would lock up after a few minutes, so I gave up and wiped it off my hard drive.
 
Sorry Cypress, but I have better things to do with my life than waste time wrestling with your crappy bloatware!

[martys]

BruceAbbott: You've experienced the same problems I've encountered with the Cypress IDE.

andyturk, Thanks, I'll take a look at the Segger's IDE.

ShowKemp: Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look at the STM toolchain ideas.

blueskull:  I see you've been buying the PSOC5LP-059 kits by the tens: Can you mention a useful project  instance or two? Perhaps I bought the wrong chip to do something useful with.

What do you mean by " just wack those gun stick boards to actual projects"? How do you solve QFN soldering problems this way?

In short, have you then succeeded in overcoming the obstacles of using the Cypress IDE/MCU's to make something really practical and useful? 

[martys]

evb149: I really thank you for taking the time to offer so many ideas. I have spent a bit of time to flesh out what the SW needs to do for voice recognition by researching different SW approaches to solve this problem. I am also using a Win PC to capture voice samples and analyze them using a sound editor like Cool-Edit Pro.

I don't know if I could afford the time to try to achieve my goal with a race horse chosen to pull the cart and then after have to figure out how to morph down the race horse into a mini-mule and hope to get similar results.

 A big horse like a raspberry pi wouldn't fit into the product I have in mind by an order of magnitude. I need pony or mini-poodle or better  yet,  maybe a jumping spider sized MCU HW.

Cost of the product to make and its size are big factors here. Most importantly, I think accomplishing any specific goal by using a  minimalistic approach adequate to achieve a desired result is the best approach.

blueskull: Thanks! There is a big difference between gum and gun.

But to go back to my original question here:

In short, anyone  care to mention an instance where they've succeeded in overcoming the obstacles of using the Cypress IDE/MCU's to make something really practical and useful? 

[danadak]

The price at the Cypress store is $ 3.60 for 1.     

http://www.cypress.com/search/parts/CY8C4247AZI-M485



The price for the high end 5LP board is $ 10.     

http://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/cy8ckit-059-psoc-5lp-prototyping-kit-onboard-programmer-and


In 2011 Cypress had shipped to date > 1,000,000,000 PSOC parts

http://www.cypress.com/news/cypress-approaches-1-billionth-psoc-programmable-system-chip-unit-shipment



Regards, Dana.

[Bruce Abbott]

Care to name a few besides no Linux support?

Akamai Download manager


PSoC Creator 4.0 Released!

October 13, 2016

By Mark Saunders

Regular Start Page readers will have noticed that we are discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista next year. PSoC Creator 4.0 (and all updates we make to it) will continue to support those platforms but the next major software release will not. Note that PSoC Programmer shall continue to support those OS.

Reminder - Discontinuing Support for Windows XP and Vista

December 08, 2016

By Mark Saunders

I posted this a while ago but wanted to remind you that, in 2017, we shall be discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in PSoC Creator. Microsoft has discontinued support for these Windows platforms and is not maintaining compatibility with them in the .NET framework. PSoC Creator support shall be maintained fully for all public releases in 2016 and early 2017 but the first major feature-based release shall discontinue support entirely.

Will PSOC Creator 4.1 run on Windows XP 32bit?

The application itself seems to be running fine. However when I plug in the kit, Windows is not finding the driver for "Cypress KitProg2". I can't find the driver in any of the downloads. Any advise, please? I have CY8CKIT-041-40XX.

Correct Answer
by user_1377889 on Oct 24, 2017 10:44 AM

One of the following Windows platforms is required:

Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 (32- and 64-bit supported)
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (32- and 64-bit supported)
Windows 10 (32- and 64-bit supported)

[hendorog]

Care to name a few besides no Linux support?

Akamai Download manager


PSoC Creator 4.0 Released!

October 13, 2016

By Mark Saunders

Regular Start Page readers will have noticed that we are discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista next year. PSoC Creator 4.0 (and all updates we make to it) will continue to support those platforms but the next major software release will not. Note that PSoC Programmer shall continue to support those OS.

Reminder - Discontinuing Support for Windows XP and Vista

December 08, 2016

By Mark Saunders

I posted this a while ago but wanted to remind you that, in 2017, we shall be discontinuing support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in PSoC Creator. Microsoft has discontinued support for these Windows platforms and is not maintaining compatibility with them in the .NET framework. PSoC Creator support shall be maintained fully for all public releases in 2016 and early 2017 but the first major feature-based release shall discontinue support entirely.

Will PSOC Creator 4.1 run on Windows XP 32bit?

The application itself seems to be running fine. However when I plug in the kit, Windows is not finding the driver for "Cypress KitProg2". I can't find the driver in any of the downloads. Any advise, please? I have CY8CKIT-041-40XX.

Correct Answer
by user_1377889 on Oct 24, 2017 10:44 AM

One of the following Windows platforms is required:

Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 (32- and 64-bit supported)
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (32- and 64-bit supported)
Windows 10 (32- and 64-bit supported)

No surprises there, it is very normal for new software to only be supported on a limited and current range of OS's.
XP was good, but it came out in 2001. You can't seriously be critical for them to call time on that. Vista, well, it had a nice name. It was the off sequence release that nobody used.

IIRC Eclipse can be used for PSoC development, and the programmer for programming. I think some tasks still need to be done on the Windows software though which is a bummer.

[Bruce Abbott]

I wouldn't be surprised if Win10 will be the only supported platform by many other apps.

Windows 10 sucks and I refuse to use it. Sales of Windows PCs are going down and vendors who lock themselves into Microsoft products can expect a shrinking market.

BTW Windows 10 goes into extended support in 2020, which is less than 2 years away.  I hate to think how crappy the next version will be...

[ShowKemp]

From a post on the Cypress forum:

Hi Bill,

As user_65461 mentioned, you will need VM software to run Creator on a MAC. We don't have support and don't plan to support Creator for MAC OS. However, with our future tools, we are planning to support MAC OS and other OS's. Be on the look out for new tools from us in the 2018 year.

Thanks and let me know if you have other questions!
Regards,
Michi Yoneda (Cypress engineer)

What However, with our future tools, we are planning to support MAC OS and other OS's. Be on the look out for new tools from us in the 2018 year. means?

What do you think those tools can be?
With those future tools available, will you give PSoC microcontrollers another try?

I´m guessing you will only need the arm-none-eabi toolchain installed on your development machine, and kitprog have support on openocd already, even a Cypress engineer is adding support to PSoC6 devices on openocd so i guess they will use openocd as the programmer (or you can use a jlink which have support for psoc devices).

[hli]

Back to the original question - can make something useful? Sure you can. Based on a video from w2aew showing a using a '555 and two OpAmps I went and did the same with a PSoC4 (a CY8C4245). And yes, you can solve something like this without needing software, just the pure PSoC hardware is enough. Apart from the needed passives and a diode, of course. I wanted to also do the follow-up showing a transistor curve tracer, but never had the time for it
If this is to small for your likes: my first PSoC project was a 2-channel 1Msps scope+8 channel logic analyzer (up to 32k samples depending on what you sampled), with LCD GUI and SUMP desktop connectivity, and quite some triggering capabilities. Apart from the LCD this did not need any external components, just a single PSoC5 chip. Unfortunately I never came around writing everything down in detail, but I have a video of it somewhere.

Compared with other MCUs the PSoC is still my go-to prototyping platform. You are so much faster in setting up something that starting a VM with W7 (or W10) is worth it. The component setup is simple (no need to learn strange CMSIS APIs just to set up I2C or something like that), ans the APIs that you need to use are mostly simple and straightforward. Documentation is always a mouse click away, no need to search in 1000 page documents (like for Atmel or TI) which only scatter the needed information in many places anyway.

As for the criticism above:
- component updates: Cypress can and will fix errors in their components, just in software, without new silicon. If you want to live with the errors, fine, they will not force you to update. You can also choose to live with 20 page erratas from other MCUs.
- XP support / 32bit: well, you can stay with GCC and vi. Anything else will stop supporting this platform probably sooner than later for their current products. And they are right - using a platform where you will never ever get any security bugfixes and which is connected to the internet should be a criminal offense now.
- Akamai: you are not forced to use it. The last time I did was like 5 years ago or so (because I clicked in the wrong place).
- download size: compare it with CCS, MPLABX, Attolic and the likes, and they are not that much smaller. Creator switched (with 4.1 IIRC) to a more incremental model where you get component updates, board support packages and examples only when you need them.

[Bruce Abbott]

using a platform where you will never ever get any security bugfixes and which is connected to the internet should be a criminal offense now.

Since Microsoft refuses to supply patches for older versions of their OS, who are the real criminals - the users, or the manufacturer who refuses to fix their unsafe product?  If they were a car manufacturer the answer would be obvious...

And despite the latest OS's being purportedly 'more secure', new vulnerabilities are constantly appearing. For example:- 
Meltdown

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities are considered "catastrophic" by security analysts.[9][10][11] The vulnerabilities are so severe that researchers initially thought that they could not be true... The exploit is viable on any operating system in which privileged data is mapped into virtual memory of unprivileged processes, which includes most major operating systems for the affected CPU architectures.

Frankly, it's scary - to think that this major security flaw has been lurking for years in all Intel CPUs from Pentium Pro up, but only now discovered - or has it? I have no confidence in the ability of Intel and Microsoft to keep their latest products secure.

Creator switched (with 4.1 IIRC) to a more incremental model where you get component updates, board support packages and examples only when you need them.

That's good to know. Unfortunately Cypress already cooked their goose with me...

[danadak]

Was that an open source project or a proprietary one.

If former I would love to take a look at project., code etc..


Regards, Dana.

[hendorog]

using a platform where you will never ever get any security bugfixes and which is connected to the internet should be a criminal offense now.

Since Microsoft refuses to supply patches for older versions of their OS, who are the real criminals - the users, or the manufacturer who refuses to fix their unsafe product?  If they were a car manufacturer the answer would be obvious...

And despite the latest OS's being purportedly 'more secure', new vulnerabilities are constantly appearing. For example:- 
Meltdown

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities are considered "catastrophic" by security analysts.[9][10][11] The vulnerabilities are so severe that researchers initially thought that they could not be true... The exploit is viable on any operating system in which privileged data is mapped into virtual memory of unprivileged processes, which includes most major operating systems for the affected CPU architectures.

Frankly, it's scary - to think that this major security flaw has been lurking for years in all Intel CPUs from Pentium Pro up, but only now discovered - or has it? I have no confidence in the ability of Intel and Microsoft to keep their latest products secure.

It's only scary if someone was operating under the mistaken assumption that perfect security is possible. Like someone thinking that their house is perfectly secure, or their car could never be stolen because it has an unhackable wireless key fob.

Security is imperfect, always was, always will be. Same goes for anti-virus software.

This may well be the largest vulnerability that nobody ever knew about, but I am damn sure it won't be the last one discovered.

The point being made is that you are better off with an OS which gets security fixes than one that does not. Applying the fixes simply reduces the time your computer is exposed. Since you are concerned about security, then logically you should run an OS for which you can get security fixes.

[julianhigginson]

As in real physical life, in computer life security is a process (or an ideal state). Security is not an absolute thing you can just posses.

If the value to violating your security is high, then there will always be more and bigger threats to your security, and so there will always need to be more and bigger countermeasures to those threats.

And the complexity of an OS running on a preemptive thread executing multi pipe-lined hardware is *far* too great for anyone to understand all implications and side effects... (hell, I'm surprised computers work at all, with the crap they do) So yes, bugs will exist and until we can formally prove every possible application use case with every possible application code running on an entire OS release running on formally proven hardware, they always will.

In some ways that "heartbleed" SSH bug was way worse than the latest preemptive execution side effect hack.. that was a bug in fully open source code for a major active project that was always in use and updated. And it had an enormous hole right in the middle of it for like 15 years and NOBODY NOTICED (or at least nobody who wanted to fix it noticed....)

So yeah, I find it weird that people insist on using 10 and even 20 year old proprietary software expect it to be updated for free.

AFAIK (though don't claim to be an expert here)  win10 is not going anywhere - it's going to the osX model of updates from now on. As in it'll perpetually be win10, but major version updates will be released. hence the recent "creators update"...

[Bruce Abbott]

the complexity of an OS running on a preemptive thread executing multi pipe-lined hardware is *far* too great for anyone to understand all implications and side effects... (hell, I'm surprised computers work at all, with the crap they do) So yes, bugs will exist and until we can formally prove every possible application use case with every possible application code running on an entire OS release running on formally proven hardware, they always will.

Thanks for admitting that running the latest OS doesn't necessarily make you any less vulnerable. Meanwhile, I have been running XP for over 10 years and never got hit by any malware. And the longer I keep using it the less vulnerable it becomes, because even cybercriminals are dropping 'support' for it. 

But if I want to be really secure I can always crank up the old Amiga 1200. No Intel code can touch it, nor Word or Excel macros, not even Javascript (browser support too limited). Security through obsolescence!     

So yeah, I find it weird that people insist on using 10 and even 20 year old proprietary software expect it to be updated for free.

Firstly I am not talking about 'updates' but only security fixes. The cost to Microsoft is probably minimal - but they won't do it because they are trying to force me into buying Windows 10. Sorry Micro$oft, not going to happen! Linux is the way forward for me now - and I bet I am not alone...

I have noticed that more and more developers are now using Linux or Macs. Open source software is mostly Linux-based, and most chip manufacturers are providing multi-platform IDEs. Vendors who buck the trend may see their popularity and market share decline. 

AFAIK (though don't claim to be an expert here)  win10 is not going anywhere - it's going to the osX model of updates from now on. As in it'll perpetually be win10, but major version updates will be released. hence the recent "creators update"...

If true that really sucks. Hardly surprising though - Microsoft don't seem to understand just how sucky their 'ultimate' OS is.

[hli]

Was that an open source project or a proprietary one.
If former I would love to take a look at project., code etc..

Let me dig up the code, I will attach it to the blog post.

[martys]

Thanks hli, finally at least one answer to my OP!

But looking on what you've accomplished with the similar and less powerful PSoC chip, the same thing could be so easily done using a 8051 chip or just about any 8-bit PIC chip, this idea only requires only one 8-bit port to create a 3 or 4-bit D to A convertor, just by using a R/2R resistor network to get the 8-steps shown in the ramp generator. Only a few lines of C-code required and can be compiled in DOS using a DOS text editor to create a very short C-source file.

No need for an oversized super-powerful gum-stick Cypress ARM core MCU dev. board here!

So, is your solution practical?

[mikeselectricstuff]

At $10USD and free debugger/IDE, seems at first a good deal, but the chip in quan. <25 has a  high cost ($8.27) and can't be breadboarded easily upon a solderless breadboard, so development is clumsy without using the very large Cyberkit-043

It takes  lots of wires messily connecting to a test solderless breadboard.

Is there a better MCU choice that offers as good MIPS (>16MIPs)
>16K or better SRAM
Easier to configure peripherals like A2D, timers,counters, PWM, etc.
A free, unlimited use of available  flash RAM
Having no code limitations of compiler/output code size
Offering a free Windows development IDE that isn't full of gotcha's and bugs?
Having the convenience of a DIP MCU package to be able to pop into a large prototyping breadboard?

PIC32MX1xx ticks all those boxes ( including DIP package)

[martys]

mikeselectricstuff:  I searched microchip's website and couldn't find any PIC24MX MCU's on a gum stick eval board

[obiwanjacobi]

I used the PSoC 5 as a System Controller in a Z80 homebrew build.
https://github.com/obiwanjacobi/Zalt

Specifically: https://github.com/obiwanjacobi/Zalt/tree/master/Source/SystemController/SystemController.cydsn

[2c]

[mikeselectricstuff]

mikeselectricstuff:  I searched microchip's website and couldn't find any PIC24MX MCU's on a gum stick eval board

That would be because there aren't any PIC24MX parts..!

There are a few 32MX boards with larger parts, and several of them include a programmer.
The 28 pin 32MX1xx parts are also available in DIP so less need for an eval board
e.g.
http://uk.farnell.com/chipkit/chipkit-pi/dev-brd-pic32-chipkit-pi-raspberry/dp/2328004

http://uk.farnell.com/microchip/dm320103/dev-board-curiosity-pic32-mcu/dp/2678450?ost=dm320103&iscrfnonsku=false&ddkey=http%3Aen-GB%2FElement14_United_Kingdom%2Fsearch

[martys]

That makes two who found something practical to do! Thanks Obiwanjacobi.

I took a look at the immense work  you've done marrying a Cycpress PSoC with a Z80. I took a glance at your blog about this project and marveled at the amount of work that must have went into it! I hope, after all the apparent work that there was some practical use for the fruits of your labor,  this astonishing  coupling of two very different and seemingly unlikely MCU embeddable bedfellows. 

I must also offer my apology to hli, because I failed to acknowledge his second attempt with the Cypress PSoc. Although not completed, I am sure a project like this does qualify as an attempt to put a similar PSoC MCU to some practical use.
Thanks, hli, much for sharing your work.

My sleepy typo, mikeselectricsstuff, I meant to write PIC32MX as the part I was searching for on Microchip.com.

By practical, I do mean that the result of someone's attempt with the PSoC chip in question, resulted in something that was put to practical use, resulted in at least a one-timer custom product that was successfully used to do something needing do'in, and was  likely a best choice of MCU for the job.

Anyone else out there care to encourage finding practical benefit using this devboard & chip?

[Mr. Scram]

using a platform where you will never ever get any security bugfixes and which is connected to the internet should be a criminal offense now.

Since Microsoft refuses to supply patches for older versions of their OS, who are the real criminals - the users, or the manufacturer who refuses to fix their unsafe product?  If they were a car manufacturer the answer would be obvious...

Frankly, it's scary - to think that this major security flaw has been lurking for years in all Intel CPUs from Pentium Pro up, but only now discovered - or has it? I have no confidence in the ability of Intel and Microsoft to keep their latest products secure.

That's good to know. Unfortunately Cypress already cooked their goose with me...

What are you talking about? Microsoft provides updates for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 and all associated server versions. They just stopped doing the same for Vista, which is 10 years old. Better yet, the date support gets dropped is known well in advance.

There's hardly a better example of how to do it the right way.

[Bruce Abbott]

What are you talking about? Microsoft provides updates for Windows 7,

In 2020 Windows 7 will suffer the same fate as Xp and Vista. Currently more users are running Windows 7 than 10. In less than 2 years time they will all be forced to 'upgrade' to Windows 10, or be branded criminals. 

There's hardly a better example of how to do it the right way.

First Micro$oft eliminates all the competition using every trick in the book, then they force users to 'upgrade' to Windows 10 (even pushing a 'free' copy of it into Internet-connected PC's without the user's knowledge or approval). Finally they spring the trap by dropping security fixes for older versions, turning anyone who doesn't want to 'upgrade' into a criminal. You're right, there's hardly a better example of how to shake down your customers and hold the computing world to ransom.

Meanwhile Linux is getting better and better, and Apple is gaining market share. The research organization I work for are still running Windows7 on all their PCs. We bought a tablet to control our drone and the program had problems with Windows 10, so now we are buying a new ($10000) drone which only works with an iPad. Goodbye Micro$oft!

I installed Linux Lite on my latest PC and it came with 90% of the programs I need 'out of the box'. Added KiCAD and MPlabX and now I have a complete development system. If only it could do PSOC...
 

[danadak]

PSOC Completed Projects -

1) Woodstove controller, using IR T pile sensor, alarms, setpoints....

2) Legacy Amateur Radio Transmitter/Receiver measurement system and
IF LO generator. Test signal generation, pattern generator, Bode plot testing....

3) Remote PC Cold weather startup controller. Sensors, timing, signal conditioning.

4) https://www.element14.com/community/thread/23736/l/100-projects-in-100-days?displayFullThread=true

5) T sensor wireless network for property management.


Regards, Dana.

[rstofer]

Meanwhile Linux is getting better and better, and Apple is gaining market share.

Linux is smokin' in on Windows!  It is now up to a little over 2% of desktops.  Apple iOS is a lot more common at around 8%.  Somehow, I don't see Microsoft shaking in their boots.  So what if 10% of the desktops use something other than Windows?

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx

That said, I repartitioned my SSD to allow for Linux Mint alongside Windows 10.  For software development, I prefer Linux.  The Bash shell on Windows 10 works well enough but I want to use gedit, not nano.  The Cinnamon desktop is pretty nice.  It's a lot like Windows...  Installing a printer is a snap.  It used to be a truly ugly ordeal.

Around here we have a bunch of machines.  Everything from XP laptops through Win 7 and Win 10 desktops, Win 10 Surface gadgets and 3 Linux machines.  About a dozen machines between the two of us.  I'm the hoarder...

I'm kind of agnostic but, really, installing Linux can be a real PITA - especially if you have an Nvidia graphics card.  I can't decide which I hate more, Linux or Nvidia.  Actually, Debian handles the graphics card fairly well.  Mint doesn't.  Ubuntu probably works, because Debian works, but it is out of the question now that the system buttons are hardwired to the wrong corner.  Sheer arrogance on the part of the developers!

Other than no future security updates, there is nobody forcing anybody to move off of XP.  Today and into the future, the system is no less secure than it was the day of the last update.  If that is satisfactory, don't upgrade.  It is unreasonable to expect support for an OS that was released in 2001.  Even the Long Term Support versions of Linux only last for about 5 years and people expect XP to last beyond 16  years.  Nonsense!  It was time to move on.

Windows 7 will receive security updates through 2020 even though support was officially discontinued in 2015.  It was released in 2009 so it's being supported for 11 years.

It's true that version upgrades are more substantial in the Windows world than in Linux'.  Part of the reason is that incremental updates of Linux occur almost daily.  Some distros, like Debian, have official release dates but the changes aren't necessarily as significant because the incremental updates have stolen most of the thunder.

One huge glaring problem with Linux is that hardware drivers are always years behind the hardware.  The manufacturers won't 'open source' their code (and Microsoft doesn't make them) so either the Linux world has to stumble across a solution or we get stuck with having to recompile some obfuscated code like the Nvidia driver.  We get to do this over every time the kernel gets a tweak.  At one time, this was almost weekly for Red Hat Enterprise.

Then too, some incantations resent the idea of proprietary drivers and go out of their way to maintain the 'purity' of the open source system.  This just makes it even more difficult to find device drivers because the repository won't even be in the list.

I would never ever recommend Linux to a family member for fear I would become the IT department.

[Mr. Scram]

In 2020 Windows 7 will suffer the same fate as Xp and Vista. Currently more users are running Windows 7 than 10. In less than 2 years time they will all be forced to 'upgrade' to Windows 10, or be branded criminals. 

First Micro$oft eliminates all the competition using every trick in the book, then they force users to 'upgrade' to Windows 10 (even pushing a 'free' copy of it into Internet-connected PC's without the user's knowledge or approval). Finally they spring the trap by dropping security fixes for older versions, turning anyone who doesn't want to 'upgrade' into a criminal. You're right, there's hardly a better example of how to shake down your customers and hold the computing world to ransom.

Meanwhile Linux is getting better and better, and Apple is gaining market share. The research organization I work for are still running Windows7 on all their PCs. We bought a tablet to control our drone and the program had problems with Windows 10, so now we are buying a new ($10000) drone which only works with an iPad. Goodbye Micro$oft!

I installed Linux Lite on my latest PC and it came with 90% of the programs I need 'out of the box'. Added KiCAD and MPlabX and now I have a complete development system. If only it could do PSOC...

This doesn't make any sense. The Windows 7 lifecycle has been announced when it was released. At the end of the lifecycle it will have had close to 11 years of support, which is an absolute eternity in the world of software. If you get caught out by that, only you are to blame. It's literally one of the most predictable things in the world of IT.

Mentioning Apple as a better alternative in regards to lock-in and support is silly. Apple doesn't announce its support cycles, so you have to guess what you get. Old hardware gets dropped and that's it. Microsoft at least leaves you the option to install a newer version. Apple doesn't mind locking people in either. Even a simple hard drive replacement has to be bought from Apple, as they switched out the plug to make it Apple compatible only. Again, the Microsoft Windows support cycle is the odd one out in its predictability. They simply have to be predictable because the enterprise market won't accept anything else.

Linux isn't a viable alternative if you do serious work. It simply isn't. Most engineering software isn't available and there is little official support. That's fine if you're mucking about at home, but nothing you can build a business upon. I've tried many times in the past, because I'd love to have a free and open alternative that's in the same ballpark as Windows, but it's not, and probably won't be for some time. The open source community is amazing, but has some inherent issues that won't be resolved any time soon. There simply is too much fragmentation and people trying to reinvent the wheel.

There's plenty to hate about Microsoft and they seem hell-bent on moving in a direction no one wants, but the lifecycle of Windows isn't an issue. I don't mind people being blinded by bias, but they should keep their folly to themselves.

[martys]

Hey, someone is hijacking the OP!

This topic is about anyone finding any practical use for the PSoC Gumstick devboard!

[hendorog]

I have built a test set emulator for the signals from an 8753 VNA. I'm going to use this to build a test set when I get around to it...
This is hacky as hell, but uses the logic components only - zero code.

Also have built a VNA/reflectometer using the ADC and USB comms. This is still a rough prototype and is on the full sized dev board and not yet on the gumstick.

I think they are brilliant for prototyping. There will often be a cheaper way to build the final product once all of the problems have been solved and all of the parameters are nailed down. Hard to beat for the initial work on a project though.

[martys]

hendorog, I am surprised that you could adopt a PSoC board to make a signal emulator for a 8753 VNA which handles signals up to 2GHz! As you mentioned, and as was the case with the second solution using a PSoC, the project was never completed..is this practical?

Thanks for contributing!

This makes three!

[andyturk]

This topic is about anyone finding any practical use for the PSoC Gumstick devboard!

Seems like this thread is about you passing judgment on other people's work. 

[martys]

I am just interested in finding out if anyone has used the PSoC gumstick to accomplish something practical, so, yes I am making a judgement on what is practical.

Example: Using a PSoC gumstick to create even a single-instance project that was put that was put to some practical use is practical.

Example: Using a PSoc gumstick to attempt to create a finished working project to successfully do a meaningful task, but was not able to  be completed or put to some good use is not IMHO "practical".

Example: Impractical: Using a PSoC gumstick to accomplish something where some other MCU can be easily seen as a  cheaper, simpler, much smaller solution. In other words, if one can see that there is an obvious better choice of MCU, devboard, IDE, and therefore being an easier chip to work to finish a project from any prototype breadboard,

Isn't true that many projects are never completed because one finds it is too hard to work with what you've got to work with?

[Mr. Scram]

I am just interested in finding out if anyone has used the PSoC gumstick to accomplish something practical, so, yes I am making a judgement on what is practical.

Example: Using a PSoC gumstick to create even a single-instance project that was put that was put to some use is practical.

Example: Using a PSoc gumstick to attempt to create a finished working project to successfully do a meaning task, but was not able to complete or put to some good use is not IMHO "practical".

Example: Using a PSoC gumstick to accomplish something with some other MCU that is  cheaper, simpler, much smaller, or easier to work with to finish a project is not practical.

Why are you hunting for this? What are you trying to prove to who?

[hendorog]

hendorog, I am surprised that you could adopt a PSoC board to make a signal emulator for a 8753 VNA which handles signals up to 2GHz! As you mentioned, and as was the case with the second solution using a PSoC, the project was never completed..is this practical?

Thanks for contributing!

This makes three!

The test set _control_ signals The 8753 actually goes up to 6GHz, and compatible test sets are very expensive. OTOH 8510 Test sets are comparatively cheap and I managed to get a faulty one even cheaper. The plan is to replace the electronics so it behaves like an 85047A 6GHz test set. The PSoC part is working and has never been a limitation.

The other project - the VNA/Reflectometer project goes up to whatever frequency you want as the PSoC is just sampling the DC IF. Mine was 6GHz at the time. The PSoC part is working and has never been a limitation.

Of course they are practical, you are barking up the wrong tree if you think that the PSoC cannot be used for anything practical. I doubt whether there are many other MCU's which are _more practical_ than the PSoC. Your definition of practical must be different to mine.

There are of course cheaper options, and there are more suitable options for a particular application, but there is stuff all else that has such a combination of features in one box at a reasonable price. That is why it is so good for rapid prototyping. The gumstick is a _dev board_ and as such is a prototyping tool.
Once the prototype is built then you can choose whether to make a production version and put it into production, or optimise for price by choosing different parts and put that into production.

In my experience electronics engineers tend to over-emphasise the build cost of parts, and under-emphasise time to market and non recoverable engineering time. So if I was building products commercially I would use PSoC to take advantage of market opportunities that my competitors could not, as they are too slow.

Maybe I'm feeding the troll here, we will see.

[martys]

I hope I am not seen as being a troll!

But like you, I value my time, and I allways regret the waste of spending too much time on a project. I sometimes will find myself tangled up with a project and realize that I have started with the wrong tools for the job!

Hendorog, I can see from your more detailed explanation that you've really have accomplished something very practical with a PSoC!

I do think it is very useful to the viewers of this board to be able to sometimes see what is best, what is practical to choose to start with, what is it that works well to complete a job or project, and especially what is easiest to work with.

It might be that "It is a poor craftsman that blames his tool", but I have had any success using the PSoC gumstick board to fit a practical purpose, but I can see that it might be a good toy to prototype a first fleshing out of a custom project design with.

[andyturk]

This thread started out as a request for help with a $10 dev kit. It was a fine question, lots of folks here have experience with all kinds of dev kits.

You also said, "I am trying to develop my own code for accomplish speech recognition and make custom products to aid the handicapped." Trying to do speech recognition in firmware with a Cortex M0 is clearly a bad idea. Until you realize this, no advice from the forum is going to help you.

Judgements about what's practical or not aren't particularly interesting when they come from someone who doesn't understand what they're doing.

[martys]

Andyturk, I hope you're not seen as acting like a troll!

"Trying to do speech recognition in firmware with a Cortex M0 is clearly a bad idea. Until you realize this, no advice from the forum is going to help you."
-----------------------

You've made some very harsh judgements about me.

What can be done with so little? see:
 EVblog #713 - Voice Recognition - 1980's Style

EEVblog
Published on Feb 10, 2015
Dave breadboards a 1988 vintage Tandy / Radio Shack VCP200 speaker independent voice recognition chip from Voice Control
It is just a Motorola 6804 chp with 1K ROM and 36-bytes of SRAM to work with.

[hendorog]

I hope I am not seen as being a troll!

But like you, I value my time, and I allways regret the waste of spending too much time on a project. I sometimes will find myself tangled up with a project and realize that I have started with the wrong tools for the job!

Hendorog, I can see from your more detailed explanation that you've really have accomplished something very practical with a PSoC!

I do think it is very useful to the viewers of this board to be able to sometimes see what is best, what is practical to choose to start with, what is it that works well to complete a job or project, and especially what is easiest to work with.

It might be that "It is a poor craftsman that blames his tool", but I have had any success using the PSoC gumstick board to fit a practical purpose, but I can see that it might be a good toy to prototype a first fleshing out of a custom project design with.

Good to hear.

I think the real challenge that PSoC faces is competing on price, where a particular project only needs a fraction of the features that the chip provides.
And the other related issue they face is that the baked in hardware can't be upgraded - so if you need a slightly better ADC then you have to add an external one, and that will eat away at the reason you chose the PSoC in the first place.

These downsides are trade-offs against the easy engineering, all-in-one design, zero cost dev tools and low cost boards. The gumstick has a built in programmer for example, and you can use that programmer to program your own chip if you build a PCB without the built in programmer.

It's all a trade-off, there is no right answer...

[Mr. Scram]

Andyturk, I hope you're not seen as acting like a troll!

"Trying to do speech recognition in firmware with a Cortex M0 is clearly a bad idea. Until you realize this, no advice from the forum is going to help you."
-----------------------

You've made some very harsh judgements about me.

What can be done with so little? see:
 EVblog #713 - Voice Recognition - 1980's Style

EEVblog
Published on Feb 10, 2015
Dave breadboards a 1988 vintage Tandy / Radio Shack VCP200 speaker independent voice recognition chip from Voice Control
It is just a Motorola 6804 chp with 1K ROM and 36-bytes of SRAM to work with.

You have to understand how this thread looks. You ask a somewhat specific but fair question, but immediately seem to be pushing for a certain conclusion. It doesn't help that you post a count in massive capitals and don't seen all too interesting in actually answering the question. The whole thread seems to be an effort to cast doubt on the usefulness of PSoC products. That's where questions about your motives start popping up.

[martys]

Are you working for Cypress?

I am not questioning the value Cypress Products in general, just trying to find a practical use for the PSOC gumsticks I bought maybe too few of.

[Mr. Scram]

Are you working for Cypress?

I am not questioning the value Cypress Products in general, just trying to find a practical use for the PSOC gumsticks I bought maybe too few of.

Why are you being so abrasive? Going on the assault isn't alleviating doubts about your motives. You're asking me if I work for Cypress and suggest another forum member might be a troll. Both only raise more doubts that you might not be divulging your own interests here. The fact that you don't want to see this, or wilfully ignore how things look isn't helping either.

To be absolutely clear about my interests and intention, I do not work for Cypress, I never have worked for Cypress and have no other investment in the company. My only involvement is owning two development kits, just like I own development kits of several other manufacturers.

[martys]

Chill out! I was only questioning your motives since you've questioned mine!

I am not questioning the value Cypress Products in general, just trying to find a practical use for the PSOC gumsticks I bought maybe too few of.

Anyone else?  please tell what you've accomplished with this dev board!

[danadak]

Might be more productive to post this inquiry over at Cypress forums,
just a thought.


https://community.cypress.com/welcome



Regards, Dana.