AVR-Chat

I'm very familiar with visual basic 6.0.  I need to create an
application that will allow me to manipulate a simple line graph, and
to get specified points off it (to feed to an AVR... i.e. for like a
LED brightness slope... if you see 1V (x) in A-D input here, put (y)
PWM to the LED) and I need to transmit this via serial to the AVR.

Is VB a good choice? Is visual C++ any better? I do NOT want people to
have to download anything, it should be a self contained
install/program.  (I've heard of the .Net platform which apparently
requiers users to download some support file package)  Thanks,

Ryan

>I've heard of the .Net platform which apparently
>requiers users to download some support file package


I wouldn't worry about that, the same issue was brought up with VB. 
You need the runtimes on your computer for either version to work. 
.NET is a bigger download, but internet connections are faster now as
well.  

What about cross-platform compatability?  Perhaps Java would be an
option as it support more than just Windows(R).  Or better yet, make
it command line or menu driven, and you can use any terminal emulation
software on any computer, no download required.  Not a nice looking
GUI, but it gets the job done, and any computer with a serial or USB
port can do it, even a PDA.

-Don

Huh...  so visual basic is already a ".net" program?  Or is that just
a function of what I want to do with it (serial/graphics)?  Does/can
the package deployment wizard include all those files in your install
setup?  I'd like to stick with what I know, and VB has a huge leg up
over anything else...

Ryan

At 08:05 AM 14/07/2006, you wrote:
>Is VB a good choice?

It is and the new Visual Studio is reasonably priced...for the time
being. I think M$ wants to try and recapture the people they lost
with VS2003.

>I do NOT want people to have to download anything, ....(I've heard of
>the .Net platform which apparently requiers users to download some
>support file package)

Unfortunately it will need .NET2 to work, so unless it is already installed
and it will be more and more by default, it will need to be downloaded and
installed. The set up launcher will do this automatically if the computer is
on the net but it is about 20Mb.

Delphi is another excellent choice but too expensive for my taste, it may
get cheaper once Borland gets out of the way, I haven't kept up with the
latest.


Regards

John Samperi

********************************************************
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
*Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
********************************************************

At 08:41 AM 14/07/2006, you wrote:
>so visual basic is already a ".net" program?

Yep for at least 3 years that I know of. VB2005 which
you can download for free, is .net2 based and cannot
run without it i.e. it is like a giant VBRUN.
Win XP (and other versions ??) will install .net 1 or .net1.1
as a minimum. I'm presuming that .net2 will be installed
as standard from now on.

Regards

John Samperi

********************************************************
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
*Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
********************************************************

> I wouldn't worry about that, the same issue was brought up with VB. 
> You need the runtimes on your computer for either version to work. 
> .NET is a bigger download, but internet connections are faster now as
> well.  

That's a good point.  Like I said, as long as it gets packaged with
the installer, and it fits on a CD, I guess that's fine.  An internet
connection is not guaranteed.

> 
> What about cross-platform compatability?  Perhaps Java would be an
> option as it support more than just Windows(R).  Or better yet, make
> it command line or menu driven, and you can use any terminal emulation
> software on any computer, no download required.  Not a nice looking
> GUI, but it gets the job done, and any computer with a serial or USB
> port can do it, even a PDA.
> 
> -Don
>

Not an issue.  99.9% of the users have windows.  I would like it to be
able to run on windows 95 or 98 if possible though.  I think VB should
be able to handle that just fine.  The GUI isn't a want, it's a need.
 I need the interface to be extremely user friendly.  Thanks for the
comments

> What about cross-platform compatability?  Perhaps Java would be an
> option as it support more than just Windows(R).  Or better yet, make
> it command line or menu driven, and you can use any terminal emulation
> software on any computer, no download required.  Not a nice looking
> GUI, but it gets the job done, and any computer with a serial or USB
> port can do it, even a PDA.
> 

Or wx-widgets & wx-python, win lin & mac.  Yet another @&%@@ language to learn 
but the entry cost is low...


-- 
Cheers

Don

I've used Visual Basic (VB6) for years. It's perfect for rapid development
of certain kinds of applications with limited users.

Programs I've written with it, some of which are large and complex, are very
reliable. I have one huge program that runs 24/7 in my home to create TV set
displays of all sorts of home automation devices and to allow website and
family photo archive  viewing using the TV remote. That program is rock
solid. It has a real time task scheduler in it too.

 

So I wrote a fairly complicated bootstrap loader GUI for AVR chips using
VB6. I then decided to "get the religion" and convert it to VB 2005 (VB
.NET). Microsoft now has tools that automate 98% of that. The resultant new
program for VB2005 was running OK after I worked at it for a few hours.
However, I junked the whole thing. Why? The bloated code for the runtime
.NET was way beyond absurd. It starts with a 20MB download of the .NET 2
platform. Then my program runs with that bloat. My poor old AMD 1800+ PC
just crawled to load and run this. With 1GB of RAM. I swear I see dot net
with a ration of ten million to one - where that's .NET overhead versus real
application work. 

 

So I found a way for my VB6 program to take on the look and feel of XP
(.NET) but not have the need for the .NET platform. (see AVRfreaks.net,
academy files, BLIPS 2.1 project).

 

Lastly, VB 2005 aka VB .NET is so different than VB6, you may as well devote
your time to learning C++. Then you MUST learn Micro$oft's C#. 

For what I do, none of this is worth the investment of time and frustration.
I am not alone in this opinion based on what I read in the various forums.

 

Sorry to rant about VB 2005. It's bad medicine force fed by Micro$oft
kiddies who graduate and go there and never work in the real world of
schedules and budgeted projects.

 

  _____  

From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Ryan
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 3:05 PM
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?

 

I'm very familiar with visual basic 6.0. I need to create an
application that will allow me to manipulate a simple line graph, and
to get specified points off it (to feed to an AVR... i.e. for like a
LED brightness slope... if you see 1V (x) in A-D input here, put (y)
PWM to the LED) and I need to transmit this via serial to the AVR.

Is VB a good choice? Is visual C++ any better? I do NOT want people to
have to download anything, it should be a self contained
install/program. (I've heard of the .Net platform which apparently
requiers users to download some support file package) Thanks,

Ryan

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 12:04 PM 14/07/2006, you wrote:
>I would like it to be
>able to run on windows 95 or 98 if possible though.

Don't know if it will run on Win 95 but I have an application
running on Win 98 233MHz, it's awfully slow to load though,
but that's M$. My application developed with VS2005 is
downloadable from my website if anyone would like to have
a look. You may not have a use for it perhaps, but it's pretty
small download and if you have .net2 already installed it
should install quickly.


Regards

John Samperi

********************************************************
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
*Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
********************************************************

hi;

For visualization perposes, VB is a good choice, but I
use Delphi because of rich set of components it have.

Both may be distributed in short and normal form.

VB may produce P-Code or native executable file.
Delphi may produce an executable file which needs some
BPL files or a standalone single executable file.

But;

.NET executable files are very small, but needs at
runtime framework to be installed on system to work
properly. But Remember, if you use .NET platform,
there is a program named Reflector which could convert
your executable file into main source code. to avoid
this you should use some tools or tricks, like
dotfuscator to block reflector like programs.

for visualisation all environments are same, but if
you want to write a program which deals with bit
operations or have a large amount of operations
similary when you want to draw a graph, VC or C# or
Delphi are better than VB.

as a result, I prefered Delphi but if source code is
not important for you C# and .NET with framework 2.0
is a best.

good luck;


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> Sorry to rant about VB 2005. It's bad medicine force fed by Micro$oft
> kiddies who graduate and go there and never work in the real world of
> schedules and budgeted projects.
> 

Thanks for your input.  That answered a lot of questions.  I need it
to be "backwards compatible" back to a pentium II, so now I know .NET
is definately not what I want.  Which is good, because I just started
the project with VB6.

Thanks guys!

Ryan

My VB 2005 adaptation of my VB6 program so bogged down my AMD 1800 PC
with .NET2 bloat and memory usage, and sloooooooooowwwwww launch times,
that it's a total joke.

----- Original Message -----
From: Reza <reza_agha@yahoo.com>
Date: Friday, July 14, 2006 1:00 am

Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com

> hi;
> 
> For visualization perposes, VB is a good choice, but I
> use Delphi because of rich set of components it have.
> 
> Both may be distributed in short and normal form.
> 
> VB may produce P-Code or native executable file.
> Delphi may produce an executable file which needs some
> BPL files or a standalone single executable file.
> 
> But;
> 
> .NET executable files are very small, but needs at
> runtime framework to be installed on system to work
> properly. But Remember, if you use .NET platform,
> there is a program named Reflector which could convert
> your executable file into main source code. to avoid
> this you should use some tools or tricks, like
> dotfuscator to block reflector like programs.
> 
> for visualisation all environments are same, but if
> you want to write a program which deals with bit
> operations or have a large amount of operations
> similary when you want to draw a graph, VC or C# or
> Delphi are better than VB.
> 
> as a result, I prefered Delphi but if source code is
> not important for you C# and .NET with framework 2.0
> is a best.
> 
> good luck;
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
>

Hi again;

by now I'm writing a service based on C# and this is a
part of a big automation project (about $2,000,000)
and .NET was great for this. But remember something;

under IDE all C# programs starts and runs very slow.
but in real world, they execute very fast.

at the other hand, .NET platform is a good choice to
write portable programs not fast ones. ofcourse it is
fast enough for real time perposes.

and an important point:

.NET programs may begin slowly, but during execution
time it is fast enough, powerfull and very safe for
programmer.

good luck;


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com

At 01:34 PM 7/14/2006 -0700, Reza wrote:
>at the other hand, .NET platform is a good choice to
>write portable programs not fast ones. ofcourse it is
>fast enough for real time perposes.

Portable?  I thought .net was windows specific.

Robert

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Robert Adsett
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 7:49 PM
Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?


At 01:34 PM 7/14/2006 -0700, Reza wrote:
>at the other hand, .NET platform is a good choice to
>write portable programs not fast ones. ofcourse it is
>fast enough for real time perposes.

Portable?  I thought .net was windows specific.

Robert

I just saw a demo the other night of some .net applications that were 
created using Visual Studio and then run on Linux using Mono.

Jim

.NET programs may begin slowly, but during execution
time it is fast enough, powerfull and very safe for
programmer.



Hogwash.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 09:07 PM 7/14/06 -0400, James Ronald wrote:
> >Robert Adsett
> >At 01:34 PM 7/14/2006 -0700, Reza wrote:
> >>at the other hand, .NET platform is a good choice to
> >>write portable programs not fast ones. ofcourse it is
> >>fast enough for real time perposes.
> >Portable?  I thought .net was windows specific.
>I just saw a demo the other night of some .net applications that were
>created using Visual Studio and then run on Linux using Mono.


Interesting, early stages from the looks of things and it looks like C# is 
supported but not necessarily anything else unless perhaps it produces CIL 
code.

Robert

They're also working on VB.Net for Mono as well - so you'll be able to run
it on Linux, BSD, MAC OSX, Solaris, Unix, etc

More details on it here
http://www.mono-project.com/Language_BASIC

The point being, if you could use .Net 1.0 or 1.1 (ie VB 2002 or VB2003),
you stand a good chance of having some cross-platform compatibility. With
VB6, the only option I can think of is using WINE on Linux, for
cross-platform stuff.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Adsett
> To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 7:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?
>
>
> Portable?  I thought .net was windows specific.
>
> Robert
>
> I just saw a demo the other night of some .net applications that were
> created using Visual Studio and then run on Linux using Mono.
>
> Jim
>
>

The VB-like cross platform compilers like RealBasic come close but IMO just
aren't quite viable. RealBasic is popular on MACs; the windows version is
fair but not good.

 

  _____  

From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Randy Ledyard
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:53 PM
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?

 

They're also working on VB.Net for Mono as well - so you'll be able to run
it on Linux, BSD, MAC OSX, Solaris, Unix, etc

More details on it here
http://www.mono- <http://www.mono-project.com/Language_BASIC>
project.com/Language_BASIC

The point being, if you could use .Net 1.0 or 1.1 (ie VB 2002 or VB2003),
you stand a good chance of having some cross-platform compatibility. With
VB6, the only option I can think of is using WINE on Linux, for
cross-platform stuff.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Adsett
> To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroup <mailto:AVR-Chat%40yahoogroups.com> s.com
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 7:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?
>
>
> Portable? I thought .net was windows specific.
>
> Robert
>
> I just saw a demo the other night of some .net applications that were
> created using Visual Studio and then run on Linux using Mono.
>
> Jim
>
>

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

hi;

first version of .NET platform published under
Windows, but due to it's structure in use, it could be
portable, google for MONO project which is a port of
.NET Framework under Linux. or even ROTOR project.

At the other hand, if .NET belongs to Windows only,
why you can not create and access a pipe using
FileStream?


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RealBasic for MAC, Linux and Windows is I think the best there is for
cross-platform. I tried it for a while - it's qwirky but improving.

 

  _____  

From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Randy Ledyard
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:53 PM
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?

 

They're also working on VB.Net for Mono as well - so you'll be able to run
it on Linux, BSD, MAC OSX, Solaris, Unix, etc

More details on it here
http://www.mono- <http://www.mono-project.com/Language_BASIC>
project.com/Language_BASIC

The point being, if you could use .Net 1.0 or 1.1 (ie VB 2002 or VB2003),
you stand a good chance of having some cross-platform compatibility. With
VB6, the only option I can think of is using WINE on Linux, for
cross-platform stuff.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Adsett
> To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroup <mailto:AVR-Chat%40yahoogroups.com> s.com
> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 7:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] "Best" application for a windows GUI?
>
>
> Portable? I thought .net was windows specific.
>
> Robert
>
> I just saw a demo the other night of some .net applications that were
> created using Visual Studio and then run on Linux using Mono.
>
> Jim
>
>

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]