Shawn,
In developing my programmer, I went through a lot of the problems everybody
is talking about here (ie different delays for different hardware in
different PCs) and finally gave up.
Instead, I did just as you suggest and pass the data to the PIC and let the
PIC sort it out (actually, I use a Terminal Emulator download to provide the
delay for programming the PIC).
It works really well (never had a problem), is completely device independant
(we were screwing around at work and ended up running it off an SGI Origin
2000), and I didn't have to write any PC software.
Just my two cents,
myke
{Quote hidden}>Industry standard question for every professional out there!
>
>I would like to keep my design theories current with industry trends.
>We use high-speed instruments interfaced to PC's and as I redisign the
>system, I am shooting for moving all timing-critical functions to an array
>of PIC's and simply communicating with the PC to retreive data from the
>instrument.
>
>Does this method of releaseing the PC from timing tasks jive with the rest
>of you engineer's sense of design or not?
>
>
"I don't do anything that anybody else in good physical condition and
unlimited funds couldn't do" - Bruce Wayne