Help Please

[YAN-1]

Hi. I have found a suitable electronic compass that I want to buy. But I was reading the data sheets of the compass and they explain how to read the resulting heading. They said the methods of communication are either SPI or UART. I am really rusty when it comes to serial protocoles, but can any of you please take a look at the datasheets and see the pin assignments of the compass and the timing requirements and tell me if I can use a 16F877 to communicate with the compass or not?
I know this PIC has an SPI and a USART module (not UART, but i'm not sure if that is a problem ). But I thought these protocoles were standard and I don't understand the things that the datasheets are requiring in terms of timings and sequences. I will greatly appreciate you taking the time to guide me. Thanks.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The USART includes a UART as well, you can set it to be either, it's likely to be the easiest option for you. You can also easily do it just in software, by writing a software UART, which my tutorials show how to do (as well as using the hardware USART).

 

[Jay.slovak]

This is simple:

UART= Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter <Asynchronus only>
USART= Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter <synchronus or asynchronus>
SPI=Serial Peripheral Interface <synchronus only>

USART can be set to be either synchronus or asynchronus (UART)

 

[YAN-1]

Ok. So if the compass says it communicates through SPI or UART, and the 16F877 has those modules, then it should work, right? I mean these protocols and the signals involved in them are standard, right?

 

[Jay.slovak]

Absolutelly! It will work.
I would use SPI, so that the USART can be used to interface with PC.