GoForSmoke:
afremont:
The microcontroller must assure that sufficient power is available by enabling what Dallas calls a "strong pullup".I dunno about PIC but with AVR I can make a pin pullup by setting it INPUT HIGH. If I'm not using that same pin to read data for a while, I can switch it to OUTPUT and give the line 5V. If I want to, I can switch the same pin to INPUT again. With the ability to switch modes in less than a usec, why do I need an extra pin? I can throw an extra resistor, even 1k on the pin and it won't affect the current from low-tolerance pullup in the AVR (20k-50k, does PIC have built-in pullup resistors?) much but limit the OUTPUT HIGH current lots.