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AVRcam Release 1.4
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1/16/2005
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Whats New in v1.4:
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-Greatly improved the issue where the AVRcam would potentially
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lock up in particular situations (especially after lots of frame
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dumps). This was due to a combination of bugs, which have all been fixed:
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   -turned off interrupts in certain critical sections that were missed
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    previously
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   -only allow PCLK to be piped into timer1 when needed (i.e., when dumping
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    a line or tracking a frame).
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   -allowed the main executive to check both the fast event bitmask as well
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    as the normal event queue on each pass of the main executive
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I'll be curious to hear if this has completely fixed the issue (I haven't
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seen it happen after ~500 frame dumps, but the real test is when
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others try it  :-).  Also note:  an input voltage below 6 volts will
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cause the system to work sometimes and lock up others.  The input voltage
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regulator really wants to see a 6V minimum.  I had drained
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8 AA NiMH batteries down to where they were only providing ~4.8 V at the
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input.  The system worked for a little while, and then started locking
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up.  I immediately changed batteries and everything was fine.
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-Improved how the colorMap gets written to EEPROM.  Now, before
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each byte in the colorMap is written to EEPROM, a check of the
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current value in EEPROM is made to see if the old value matches
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the new value.  If so, the write is skipped.  Also, after a value
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is written, it is read back to ensure that it is correct, and 
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will re-write up to three times if needed.
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-Moved the UART rx ISR to the UartInterface.c file, instead of having
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it in its own UartInterfaceAsm.S file.  The ISR is in C now.
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-Added a revision history to each source file so that people can
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see the changes on a per-version basis.
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---Misc Info about AVRcam---
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* The AVRcam source files were built using the WinAVR distribution
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(version 3.3.1 of GCC).  I haven't tested other versions of GCC,
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but they should compile without too much difficulty.  The makefile
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used to build the source is included.
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* Currently, the AVRcam only works at a baud rate of 115.2 kbps.  I
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am in the process of working on autobaud routines that will set the
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baud rate automatically at start up.  I'm pretty sure the system 
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should be able to track 8 objects all the way down to a baud rate
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of 38.4 kbps.  Check back to www.jrobot.net for more info about the
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AVRcam.
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* Different portions of the code are #ifdef'ed in or out to show
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the various debugging that can be turned on in the system.  The
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debugging mechanisms are typically for dumping additional information
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out to a serial terminal for viewing, and are not intended to work
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with the AVRcamVIEW PC application.  The code, as released, doesn't
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have any debugging features turned on.
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* For more info about the AVRcam, check out http://www.jrobot.net
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John Orlando
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January 16, 2005