Re: Minimal mice

[Peter Harrison <peter_harrison@ntlworld.com>]

I am an admirer of John Pickering's ingenuity. However, the quest for an 
electronically minimal mouse simply places the emphasis on that 
particular ingenuity. It is what John is good at and it is what he wants 
to pursue. No problem with that, or the notion that others may be good 
at it and wish to have a go as well. I can't even begin to imagine how I 
would solve the problem in 128 bytes of ram and 6 IO pins. The lack of 
more conventional, throw-some-silicon-at-it mice is a reminder that the 
challenge is already far from trivial. If we want to see more mice, we 
should be looking to make it easier to get started and simpler to 
understand. If intermediate competitions are wanted then they should 
provide identifiable steps along the way to competitive maze solvers in 
such a way that the developing mouse can be entered at any appropriate 
stage and then developed for the next stage without starting again.

FWIW - the figure of merit for the AVR I am using is about 13million so 
that is me out of the running :)

Pete Harrison

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