Hardware Serial Upload during use question

[mile.high.red]

All,
Is it to be expected, that if I have a current stream into my Diecimilia on hardware 0/1, uploading a revised sketch will fail?

MHR

[spiffed]

Yes, external circuitry driving (or even heavily loading) D0 or D1 will cause sketch upload to fail, these pins are used for communication with the bootloader by the USB interface via 1-10K resistors.

[mile.high.red]

okay then, how will I be able to permatize my gps setup and still retain a serial buffer?

Thanks for helping a beginner.

MHR

[trialex]

Software Serial to the resue!

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/SoftwareSerial

Also AFsoftserial is popular. Download from here

http://www.ladyada.net/make/eshield/download.html

[mile.high.red]

This does not lead to data lost?  It was my understanding that only the hardware serial had a buffer, and that the software serial did not.  If I have more than enough code to fill the time it takes to cycle back through for a read, will this not lead to data lost?

I want to be able to record several serial devices, and a buffer seems important to me.


Please, correct me where needed.

MHR

[Grumpy_Mike]

The hardware buffer on the serial I/O is only 1 byte. Also you will not be able to use several software serial input lines only one as it takes up all the processor time looking after the one.

[spiffed]

The hardware buffer on the serial I/O is only 1 byte.

Yes, but it's serviced by an interrupt which fills a 128 byte buffer.