PingSoft

This page is currently somewhat unstructured - have patience

PingSoft's main products are our reservation- and accounting systems for hotels and restaurants.

The hotel-systems integrates the reservation system with accounting and databases. The systems is designed to look like a manual reservation board, but removes most of the tedious work and provides automatic accounting and logging of all transactions. The hotel-systems can be seamlessly integrated with the restaurant-systems over a network.

The systems are currently being rewritten from scratch and we expect the new versions to be available in March 2000.

I have used MicroChip's 16Cxxx PIC processors a lot. They are small, fast, cheap and quite versatile, even though the extremely limited stack (2 levels) and the lack of a pure RET instruction in the 12-bit types (16C5x) can be quite bothersome. The 14-bit types (16C[6|7|8]x) are somewhat more evolved. What I especially like about PIC's, is the symmetric instruction set. The prefered language is Assembler.
How MicroChip managed the position the PIC processors have in the market without second-sourcing is a mystery to me, but they are here to stay. I'm looking forward to seeing a small PIC with an async serial port.

Another processor I have designed with, is Zilog's Z-8. The Z-8 is, IMHO, one of the most interesting embedded processors for small projects. The Z8 is not accumulator based like the 8051 family (and most other), but has an entire bank of registers (234 of them) instead, where all registers are treated equal, wich makes it a dream to program. Zilog can also provide cheap development tools like ICE and programmers. The only reason I haven't used it more, is that I can't find decent affordable compilers (Pascal or C) for it. Zilog has a problem with second-sourcing too, but the Z8 should rightfully occupy the position that the 8051 (and clones) holds, as it is classes above the latter.

I have designed with several of the 8051 dereviates (80C31, 80C535). I'm planning to start using the flash-based AT89C2051 from Atmel as soon as I get my new tool-suite from Dunfield. I've long dreamed about a small (20 pins) cheap, (re)programmable processor with a serial port, and now it's here. I have at least two projects planned for this processor - a caller-ID with some extended capabilities and a somewhat different approach to distributed access-control. Hope I get the time.

Another processor I'd like to design with is Motorola's 68HC11 (or even the 68HC12). The tools have been ordered from Dunfield.

I used to work for a company called Etronic, located in Svendborg. Etronic, among other things, specializes in various forms of telephony equipment. I learned a lot there, so I'm no stranger to interfacing to telephone lines. If I could get some peace, I'd build my own PBX using circuits from Mitel - it's really quite simple.

Now, if I could take half a year out of my calendar to construct something in the line of electronics, I certainly know what I would use the time for. I dream of building a small semi-autonomous vehicle with optional remote control. I imagine a battery-powered six-wheel design with (D)GPS-navigation, electronic compass and, sensors for locating various obstacles. The vehicle could serve as platform for quite a few applications, including location of mines. My biggest problem would be the mechanical construction, an area I am not that well wersed in - yet.

The recently exploded interest in the internet has prompted an increasing involvement with Web-programming in the form of HTML-design, JavaScript, CGI and, (soon) Java.

I have done embedded programming, TSR-programming for DOS (actually sold quite a few), BIOS extensions for PC's, and a lot of high-level programming in Pascal from the obligatory BBS to culminating in the Hotel- and restaurant-systems.
My most sold program, sofar, has been AudiCalc, wich is marketed by Sydfyns Data in Svendborg.

Programming tools
fprint UK ltd are the makers of Virtual Pascal, wich is pretty much Borland Pascal for OS/2. Comes highly reccomended.	Speed Pascal. If you like Delphi, then be sure to check out "Sibyl", wich, from the look of it, will be the OS/2 equivalent when it comes out.
Borland Int'l, should need no introduction.	The Delphi Magazine

List of free compilers (broken)
Matematica FTP-site
Learning HTML
Matt's Script Archive - a collection of CGI-scripts.

ZWorld produces C-controllers, wich are SBC Boards based on Z80 deriviates.

PIC
Besides the PIC-processors, MicroChip also produces a line of serial (Including I2C) E²PROMS that has about twice the life of most of their competitors'.	Advanced Transdata has a line of PIC development tools, including ICE and programmers.
Parallax, inc specializes in development for PIC's. They market several ICE's, PIC-Stamps, etc.	A relative newcomer in the PIC market, is PROCHIPS, inc. They market ICE and programmers for the family.

80x51 and dereviates
Atmel has combined flash memory and the 8051 family, wich makes for much improved cost in small-scale designs. Now we have the option of making generic designs without resorting to external ROM and can even design for in-system re-programming. They have also taken the logical step of retaining the serial port on the 89C2051 - I hate having to bit-bang serial ports.	Dunfield Development. Dave Dunfield has some highly recommended development tools (C-compilers, Kernels, Simulators) for several embedded microprocessor-families, including the 80x51 and 68HC11.
Xicor (broken) has many interesting circuits for embedded design.	HTE offers the 80x51 dryICE, wich is a relatively cheap ICE, and various SBC

Other microprocessors and support tools
Zilog is an old favourite of mine. They had some very innovative designs for processors and peripherals. The first few SBC I designed used a Z-80 as the core. I later copied the Z-8 BASIC design from Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar in Byte Magazine. Zilog is the maker of the Z-280, Z-180, the famous Z-80 and the versatile Z-8 processors.	If any time there was a company wich didn't deserve it's position, then it is propably Intel. Their 8051 never should have been a serious competitor to the Zilog Z8, the 8085 was inferior to the Z80 and both the Z8000 and the Motorola 68000 were much better processors than the 8088. May the designers at IBM, who decided on the inferior 8088, roast eternally in Hell (and NOT the Norvegian one). However, I'd love to do some designs with the EX386.
RadiSys (386ex chipsets)	DataLight produces ROM-DOS for various embedded 80x86 deriviates and WinLight, wich is a GUI, also for embedded 80x86 applications.
NEC (broken), among other processors, produces the V25. I have several times been on the verge of completing designs using this embedded processor, but every time some pressing matter came up and wayled me. Now that Intel's EX386 has come out .........

Altera
Analog Devices
Burr-Brown
Dallas Semiconductors
Lattice
Maxim - if I need to interface to something, I first whip out my Maxim calalouges to find a suitable circuit.
National Semiconductors
Rockwell. Lots about GPS, but nothing I, as a designer, can use.