Well, the coding has been going well... it's the testing that really bites. I believe the code for the serial io and protocol modules is very solid. Extensive debugging last week and over the weekend uncovered several problems with my original code. Part of the problem is my unfamiliarity with C but that is diminishing as each session progresses. I still do not have basic functionality though. David has helped with a few things like extern declarations to help clear up my code. I really need to go over it with Kevin though and he was tied up through all the time and testing we did down at Vertical Power Wed, Fri, and Sat. I just thought of a new test method though. I can leave the line from the PC to the serial port we use for downloading code to the microcontroller hooked up instead of trying to send messages from one MC port to the other. I ought to be able to open up a hyperterm and then see if I'm at least sending anything.
Frustration with my lingering io/network bug and our rapidly approaching deadline has produced some benefit though. Tonight I coded up the Light Sensor and Magneto Switch modules so we at least have the code for those. Testing is always the bugger though. The bright spot is this stuff is much, MUCH simpler and really should work with very limited debugging. The Switch Module behavior is smilar but slightly more complicated so we should be able to kill it tomorrow and meet most of our prority 1 deadlines... at least coded. It's going to be hard to test any of this stuff without a functioning network.
David has been working on the EEPROM and reset modules and he took the SDK home to work on for Saturday night and Sunday. Hopefully, he made some good progress. If his stuff is solid then all we'll need after getting the switch module coded is shutdown and boot loader. Oh, except that dang function table to respond to incoming messages. I'll need help from Kevin with that too but I'm finally thinking we might be able to actually pull this thing off in the next two weeks. And that is a very good thing.
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