Developing Products, the Elecraft Way

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

On 8/3/2015 4:22 PM, Marc Veeneman wrote:
"Maybe I can offer a counterpoint, I do regret my K3 purchase.  But I will
not be selling it."

On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 2:50 PM, Richard Fjeld <[hidden email]> wrote:

> The characters are being received from the USB keyboard and displayed in
> the send portion of the monitor correctly.  (my terminology)
> As they are being sent to the K3, I can hear the skip as it occurs, and I
> do not see the skipped character displayed on the K3 display panel.
> When a space is dropped, the two words get joined together.
>

A buffer one-character overrun problem it would seem.

It appears that this is about the on-monitor Keyboard functions associated
with the SVGA board in the P3, not the K3. and the SVGA would own the
buffer overrun problem. Or is there something else actually in the K3?

To characterize this as a K3 or even a P3 problem is inaccurate. The SVGA
board is a separate product release, even if its firmware is loaded via the
P3 utility. The SVGA board stuff is still considerably in user beta. I note
that all the 3rd party standalone programs that do this "terminal" stuff
have gone through gaggles of releases along the way. Elecraft is just
getting started in this genre.

This gets down to the old argument, debated over a million different things
in life, that if you want something almost perfect, you need to wait until
user beta test cycles have shaken out all the cooties. As in never buy the
first model year of a new car, etc, etc.

HOWEVER

There are those of us who ENJOY shaking out the cooties, and ENJOY the
process of living out on the bleeding edge, and we will happily do this
bug-searching self-flagellating discovery exercise for those who don't
share the appetite, and they can blissfully wait it out until an app stops
wiggling because we quit finding bugs. And we will not begrudge them even
an instant for living off our digging and debugging, because it's fun for
us. You're welcome to it. Live long and prosper. May you happily enjoy
playing video games with your great-great-grandchildren.

Wayne knows that we addicted debuggers are out there and that we enjoy the
process. He takes commercial advantage of it. Good thing and we don't care.
If he had to PAY for all that testing, costs would be MUCH higher, and
therefore a K3 would cost a lot more, or would be way less bang for the
buck. Maybe our symbiosis keeps him from having to do business like
Yakencom --  where we get all our improvements by paying for an entire
brand new model. Maybe we keep Elecraft from going under, who instead
amazingly survives the great recession without slowing down.

Some on the reflector take a dim view of this symbiotic manufacturer/user
development process. But it helps keep us in new features from what is in
reality a small niche (ham radio) small company.

A lot of us are enjoying the SVGA board. I was amazed what I could do with
it in the NAQP CW contest last weekend. Elecraft fixes the stuff we tell
them about, so your issue, irritating as it may be at this moment, is on a
list and will get resolved with all the others.

73, Guy K2AV
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[Richard Fjeld-2]

On 8/4/2015 9:49 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV wrote:
>
> It appears that this is about the on-monitor Keyboard functions
> associated with the SVGA board in the P3, not the K3. and the SVGA
> would own the buffer overrun problem. Or is there something else
> actually in the K3?


At this point, we don't know what is failing, or where.  The K3
typically receives each character from the P3/SVGA and produces the CW
code and side tone for each element as the character is being
transmitted.  It also displays each alpha-numeric character on the K3
display.  When a character is skipped, none of those actions are
happening in the K3.  Then, there is the RS232 between the two units to
consider.  The fact that it fails independent of speed, even at very
slow speed is the curious part.

This thread got off on a tangent when it was suggested to Marc that he
use a computer for CW with the K3.  If doing so, isn't it a function of
the sound card line in and out, and not the RS232 to transfer the code?  
Perhaps I'm forgetting something.  I make mistakes when it's late and
I'm tired.

Dick, n0ce



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[Jerry Moore]

My thoughts would be that all devices use the USB instead of RS232. By
design the USB is a BUS rather than a point to point protocol as is RS232.
Especially with USB3 throughputs this would make a better interconnect.
Another thought would be an Ethernet connection in addition to the USB3. I
can see the future potential in an additional microcontroller on the I/O and
if it's not already the standard, using the universal serial bus (USB) for
all peripheral interconnects. Makes sense to me anyway.

 

As far as I'm concerned tho the setup works fine as is J, I am going to go
back and do one more look at the TS-590SG. It's a close call but I'm
comparing a quarterhorse to a drafthorse and justifying spending almost
twice as much more to get the drafthorse.

 

The built in obsolescence of the TS-590SG is a big negative for me.

 

Back on topic of CW via keyboard.. I've not found in the docs where
connecting a keyboard directly to the K3S is even supported?? Maybe it's a
feature of the P3..

 

Jer

 

 

On 8/4/2015 9:49 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV wrote:

>

> It appears that this is about the on-monitor Keyboard functions

> associated with the SVGA board in the P3, not the K3. and the SVGA

> would own the buffer overrun problem. Or is there something else

> actually in the K3?

 

 

At this point, we don't know what is failing, or where.  The K3

typically receives each character from the P3/SVGA and produces the CW

code and side tone for each element as the character is being

transmitted.  It also displays each alpha-numeric character on the K3

display.  When a character is skipped, none of those actions are

happening in the K3.  Then, there is the RS232 between the two units to

consider.  The fact that it fails independent of speed, even at very

slow speed is the curious part.

 

This thread got off on a tangent when it was suggested to Marc that he

use a computer for CW with the K3.  If doing so, isn't it a function of

the sound card line in and out, and not the RS232 to transfer the code?  

Perhaps I'm forgetting something.  I make mistakes when it's late and

I'm tired.

 

Dick, n0ce

 

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[David Woolley (E.L)]

On 05/08/15 16:21, Jerry Moore wrote:
> My thoughts would be that all devices use the USB instead of RS232. By
> design the USB is a BUS rather than a point to point protocol as is RS232.

In spite of its name, USB is not a bus.  At the physical level, it is
most definitely point to point, and, unlike RS232 cannot be abused into
a bus configuration.

It does have a network layer, although I think that only supports
unicast.  RS232 is only a physical layer specification, and not a
complete one.  Anyone using the internet before ADSL almost certainly
was using RS232 as the first hop to a global network.

--
David Woolley
Owner K2 06123

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