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Uh, is this the right place to post about the SX — Parallax Forums

Uh, is this the right place to post about the SX

RavenkallenRavenkallen Posts: 1,057
edited 2010-09-19 09:59 in General Discussion
I recently won a SX microcontroller and serial SX key in a contest, only problem is that i have no idea how to get started. I know you have to download the programming editor and compiler, but how do you deal with serial programing interface....I don't even have a serial port on my laptop. Do you need to buy a serial to USB converter? Any help would be more than appreciated.

Comments

  • Shawn LoweShawn Lowe Posts: 635
    edited 2010-09-16 12:47
    Yes, you will need a serial to usb comverter to use your SX key
  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2010-09-17 12:00
    This is the correct forum for the SX processors (SX20, SX28, SX48, etc) so if there are any questions regarding these chips just post them here....

    To get started you'll need the SX-Key software which you can find here:

    http://www.parallax.com/tabid/460/Default.aspx

    The first download is what you want. It will install the whole development environment for the SX chips. You can either program the chips in assembly or SX/B. (There is also a C compiler but I never really got into that).

    The easiest way to get started is to use SX/B and wire up some of the example projects in the help file. The code for each one is there ready to download to the chip. Once you get some known projects working then you can start using them for whatever you want.

    The SX chips are great little chips (fast too) and I've used them in quite a few projects. In particular I've used them in interfacing and also as intelligent co-processors for robot projects. In my latest Propeller based robot I am using an SX48 as a co-processor to handle all the lighting, power management, Keypad reading, and some sensor management. I was able to re-use a lot of code already written for a similar co-processor that I made for another robot. There were a couple articles I wrote fro SERVO where the SX28 helped interface things. One was a speech translator to let a SpeakJet emulate an old SC-01 chip. The other was an encoder processor that would scale encoder values to help match up existing controllers with newer encoders.

    Very useful chips.

    Robert
  • RavenkallenRavenkallen Posts: 1,057
    edited 2010-09-18 10:41
    Sorry it took so long to reply. I kinda forgot about it.....Thank you for the help....So let me get this straight. The SX is programmed in assembler? And you will need the IDE software and a serial to USB converter....Do you guys have any recommendations?
  • ZootZoot Posts: 2,227
    edited 2010-09-18 15:06
    Use Parallax's USB to Serial converter -- it's cheap and guaranteed to work.

    You can program in BASIC using SX/B -- I recommend the 2.0 beta release (which is not really beta, but an essentially finished product). See the stickies at the top of the SX forum page. SX/B is nice because it makes it much easier to manage port settings, startup (initialization code) and interrupt timing, but you can still easily mix in assembly where that kind of tight code/timing is required.
  • RavenkallenRavenkallen Posts: 1,057
    edited 2010-09-19 09:51
    Is this the USB to serial converter you guys were talking about..

    http://www.parallax.com/Store/Accessories/CablesConverters/tabid/166/CategoryID/40/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/378/Default.aspx
  • ZootZoot Posts: 2,227
    edited 2010-09-19 09:59
    Yes. That is the one.
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