Registers , Code Size and LOOPS - AT89S51/2

Well, frankly, that's not a skeleton of anything worth having.

Yes, you are.

No. What do you think your tools display the resulting program's code size for at the end of linking?

You're not correct.

Of course not. For goodness' sake: could you _please_ stop mucking around and read a bloody manual for a change?

Good grief. If removing comments changed the size of the hex file _at all_, that means you didn't even know assembly language well enough to know what is a comment and could thus be removed.

You're not making any sense whatsoever. There is no such thing as a "START register", nor are registers ever "called".

And no, you can't usually do anything in actual random order in a microcontroller.

I'll be blunt and suggest you stop playing with assembly programming right here and now. It has become abundantly clear that you don't have the understanding of CPUs required for it, nor the willingness/capability to acquire that understanding on your own. You're just not cut out for this kind of activity.

I do not know if I wi\ould tell him to stop, but he needs to read a lot more about the CPU. And there is much to find if you Goggle.

rect correlation between the size of the Hex file in Kb ? If correct, then = I won't be able to load a 9k HEX file into a AT89S52 ?

Find any programmer, and read a blank 89S52, look at the HEX file created.

es the comments I add in my project, also get compiled into the Hex file. I= removed all the comments from my project and created the Hex file again, b= ut the size the hex file is shrinking is not the same amount of bytes I rem= oved from my project .

Another exercise for the student: The hex fie DID shrink, by how much ? Did you think to see what ratio that might be, or even look at a HEX file with a text editor ?

Also look at your assembler LIST file with an editor, and that should give you clues too..

-jg

Hi Hans-Bernhard

I do understand your frustration with me and other users on this forum. I could not find a single topic where you did provide a correct answer or add value, but please hang in there, maybe out of my stupid questions you might also one day get to grips with the concept of microcontrollers. There is no note on Google which mentions only professionals or people with degrees are allowed to participate in this forum, and many replies I received from this forum already proofed the manuals I obtained as incorrect , which also make your requirement of reading "bloody" manuals redundant.

Please ignore future posts from me - I will only ask questions where my practical projects seems to conflict with the information in the manauls I bought

Kind Regards

This is my advice, based on the questions you've posted in this newsgroup and your responses. I might be judging you harshly - it's difficult to tell. Only /you/ will be able to judge how well it fits, and if you want to act on any of it. But I post this in the hope of helping you - it is constructive criticism. And feel free to disagree or to ask for more help.

Hans-Bernhard might not have answered any of *your* questions in this newsgroup, but he is one of the more knowledgeable and helpful members of the newsgroup. And his post here should be /very/ helpful to you - you need to take a long hard look at what you are trying to achieve, and think about whether you are going about this in totally the wrong way.

Assembly programming is *hard*. It can be great fun, but only if you understand about programming in general, and understand very clearly how processors work. It is obvious that you have very little idea about what the 8051 cpu is, and how it works. You simply don't have the basic knowledge to write assembly code here. You appear to be taking examples out of a book and attempting to modify them - that's a very good way of learning, *if* you understand what they do and how they work. It's like trying to learn a foreign language - and a foreign culture - by quoting from a small phrase book.

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve here, but you are using the wrong processor, and the wrong programming language - you've picked an outdated, limited and awkward device, and the hardest possible programming language. As a beginning embedded developer, you should be using a friendly micro with friendly tools and a cheap (or free) friendly C compiler - typically an AVR starter kit of some kind with ImageCraft tools. If you ask here, I'm sure you'll get plenty of recommendations for books and tools to get you started.

If you really insist of progressing along this path, then you should do your best to find some sort of course, or at least an online tutorial, teaching a basic "what is a microprocessor" topic. You need to understand what registers are, what the ALU is, what a program counter is, how the microcontroller steps through the program, how the program is stored in memory, and how it gets into the memory. Without these sorts of key concepts, you will always be stuck asking questions such as these, and you will be continually frustrated with yourself and your lack of understanding. One of the key reasons for using a higher level language (and a more modern microcontroller) is that you can insulate yourself from these low-level details - the compiler takes care of them for you.

I realise that you've spend 3 months working on this - I hate to be so blunt, but you should probably consider much of that time as just "learning experience", and start from scratch with new tools. You'll reach your end destination much faster in the end, and the journey will be more enjoyable.

Good luck,

mvh.,

David

Thank you David

I could not agree more with you - I'm learning and will be till the day I die. I already obtained a degree in Electronics as well as in clasical music (Piano) , and never in my life have I ever met people trying to help others by incriminating them and attacking their personalities. According to my knowledge it's never "helpful" to incriminate people, and this behaviour is only a good sign of a bad self esteem. If this is what this forum is about, then I don't want to be part of this, I was under the impression that this forum - like so many in which I participate - is there to share ideas, ask questions and help people with their problems, but now I've learned that if you don't know the answers already, then you don't have any right to post to this forum

I learned a lot out of every example I modify - by not knowing the limits I've already seem to achieve the below.

I've already managed to call the registers in a random order - which was a definite "NO" from other members.

"Hans-Bernhard might not have answered any of *your* questions in this newsgroup ....." - so what was the idea then of posting a reply on my post, if I can call that a reply ??

I already obtained "The 8051 Micro Controller and Embedded Systems Using Assembly and C - 2nd Edition" and out of this I already completed my project, BUT I really feel that my code can be optimized, and therefor all these questions. The expectation never was to have the forum write my code for me.

English is my second language - and I know my tenses/grammer irritates the 'crap' out of some people. 3 People from this forum already replied directly to my email adress should I have any other further questions, to "save me the public humilitation by professionals" as one guy mentioned, therefor I won't be posting any more posts to this forum, or maybe not.

Thank you for the most professional reply.

You are welcome to ask questions here, and people *will* help you. You don't have to know the answers before you ask. But you do have to know what questions to ask, and you have to show that you are willing and able to learn from the responses. People are not paid to help out here

- this means that posters have limits on how much effort they will put in. And different posters have different attitudes - some will try to answer your questions directly, others will try to help you learn to answer them yourself.

It *is* a definite "NO", in that "call the registers in a random order" is totally nonsensical. As Hans-Bernhard said, you cannot "call" a register, and the processor does not do anything in a random order.

We are all used to non-native English speakers in this international newsgroup (no one will worry about spelling or grammar mistakes, as long as you don't try to post in SMS language), but you /must/ make an effort to get technical terminology correct or you can't make sense of the technical issues.

Neither I nor anyone else here is trying to humiliate you (if you want public humiliation, I can suggest a few other newsgroups where the real Usenet psycos hang out). We are simply trying to help you help yourself. I don't see any posts that are directly "humiliating", though there a couple that imply you must be a student, or that you are out of your depth. Rather than getting annoyed or huffy about these posts and assuming these are just "arrogant professionals", you should think about what you have written to give that impression either in the questions you asked, or they way you asked them. Generally speaking, when one of the regulars in this newsgroup tells someone to do their own homework, it's for good reasons.

Lodevikus - I emailed you the code to call registers in a random order, althoug some people claim it cannot be done - unknowingly you already provided the answer to your own question in one of your prior postings.

It might be better to stay away from this forum should you still be on the learning curve as profesionalism and integrity does not seem to share the same packages here. Please feel free to reply on all emails I send to your email address. I normally don't respond to questions on this forum

Thank you Kaspaas - The random order sequence is working

People will continue to claim that you cannot "call registers in a random order", because it is totally nonsensical. You "call" a function or a subroutine, while a "register" is a cpu store for a number. You can't "call a register" any more than you can "dial a house" or "drive a football". Secondly, and this has been pointed out before, a processor does not do anything in a "random order".

If you are trying to say that it is possible to set the initial values of the registers in a different order, then that's fine - but please try to say so. If writing in English is difficult, then simply explain what you mean. It's okay to use an extra sentence or two to make it clear. It's also okay to make a mistake - but not to repeat the mistake while claiming that everyone else is wrong.

This is not a forum, it's a newsgroup. Lookup google or wikipedia if you want to know the difference. With google, you'll also find the archives of this newsgroup and see that people here /do/ try to help both professionals and non-professionals. You'll also see that Lodewicus has received plenty of helpful replies here - both direct answers to his questions, and general advice in embedded development.

ObNit: Some processors do have random number generators in HW. They're usually high-horsepower uControllers aimed at the network communications market (routers, firewalls, etc.). But, there are also smaller parts like Atmel "secure" AVR parts with HW RNGs.

Processors with RNG hardware can indeed do things in a random order.

Not that this has anything at all to do with the OP's problems.

RNG's are normally pseudo-random, rather than true random. You can also get "more" random values from other sources (timing of user keypresses, voltage across a resistor, etc.). But while these are all sources of non-determinism, the processor still does what it is told, in the order it is told - it is not the processor that does things in a random order.

Indeed :-)

The parts I'm referring to have true random number generators. At least that's what the datasheets claim. They're usually based on thermal noise or on mixing together data from several independant free-running oscillators.

It's possible that some of them are really using a PRNG with periodically refreshed random key, but that's definitely not what the datasheets say.

"call registers in a random order" is Obviously a bad translation. Perhaps rewording it may help?

In software the best you can is pseudo-random. The quality of the randomness that provides varies with the software algorithm.