ways of communication with mcu

[superchiku]

is there any other way of communicating with the mcu other than i2c or uart...iam thinking of a computer controlled bot with mcu interface...the problem is i cannot setup a uart to send commands to it...iam thinking of using an indirect communication protocol with the mcu via its adc....i transmit voltages directly to the adc of the mcu via the pc's parallel port..and depending on the no of voltages passed to the mcu ...the mcu will decide wat to do...will this technique be fast enough if i send 4 voltage readings to 4 analog pins of the mcu...

based on these 4 voltage levels i can give 16 commands to the mcu...Will this be reliable..and fast??

[SmAsH]

yes, in theory this could work, but how are you planning to get the parallel port to generate these voltages?

[superchiku]

lol thats general parallel port interfacing ..i just need to switch on any output pin of the parallel port..thats it...iam not sending any reference voltage ...i just want to see the pattern of the pins which are on...
like

0000=====stop
0001=====go forward...etc etc etc

[superchiku]

bbut will it be fast enough.. .

[TrickyNekro]

USB???
Bluetooth???
Your theory is good.... but..... ok.... a little bulky....
But after all what you need is ladder....
And you can even achieve synchronous com....
It will be as fast as your mcu's adc... so no worries....
Atmel ADC's are fast enough.... :p

[superchiku]

usb and bluetooth use the serial communication protocol...so iam thinking  of using this technique

[chelmi]

You can use digital input of your MCU as a parallel port, just make sure the voltage are compatible.
You will still need some kind of handshake protocol to latch the bits when they are all set.

BTW, why did you rule out serial communication ?

[TrickyNekro]

Get parallel to serial then with a latch....
I don't remember the IC's names I think it's 745HC something...
I'll look into it...

[superchiku]

the computers parallel port are enough...yes i need an encoder and decder ic ...HT14E and HT14D ..iam concerned abt the sspeed and response of the bot though

[chelmi]

iam concerned abt the sspeed and response of the bot though

Unless your dealing with very high speed robot, serial communication a fast enough !
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the response time of the mechanical part is already several order
of magnitude higher than the communication part.

[superchiku]

now using serial comm..iam using an indirect comm protocol via the mcu's adc

[chelmi]

now using serial comm..iam using an indirect comm protocol via the mcu's adc

I know, I'm just asking why you are not just using serial instead of such a contraption.

And why ADC and not digital IO?

[superchiku]

digital i/o ?? for input? will that be reliable...and i cant use serial comm due to some probs

[chelmi]

digital i/o ?? for input? will that be reliable...and i cant use serial comm due to some probs

Of course it's reliable! Why wouldn't it be?

[superchiku]

digital i/o like using the pind command

but how do u use that value...