Hi, i have a rather daunting problem. We want to deploy our firmware in over 300 devices. All devices use the same firmware except for one variable DeviceID. The id has to be different for every device we use. So device 1 would get id 1, device 2 id 2 and so on. I am sure that some of you have already tackled such problems. What would be the best solution? Maybe set the variable to a specific location (DeviceID _at_ Location) and patch the hexfile? or something more elegant? regards Christian
All devices use the same firmware except for one variable DeviceID. The id has to be different for every device we use. I, once, had an experience with a similar application. For reasons I do not recall, the original design required a unique number in each code memory. This worked fine till a software upgrade was required. The blasted designer of the project had made it so that once a given unit had been installed the DeviceId could not change. Please, do not fall into that trap. The upgrade process described above resulted in virtually every customer getting pi$$ed because the first start after upgrade "always" failed, since the keeping the DeviceId process turned out to be so error prone. THE GOOD NEWS is that you do not need to do that at all. Maxim has a $0.52 chip, DS2411 that provide a unique number over the Dallas 1 wire bus. I am using it in a current project where the slaves initially respond with theit DS2411 numbers and then are assigned 'manageable' numbers for theit 485 nodes. Erik