I have decided what my first PIC project will be, if it isn’t building one of Pete’s dual PIC boards (which I still want to do).
The project will be a single PIC board to interface analog and digital sensors (anything not having I2C capability) to the I2C/USB bus or to a standard serial port. I’ll use either an 18F2450 or 18F2550 which both have 10 ADCs and enough digital I/O to handle the tasks I want to do.
I got this idea from a product called GPIO I saw on the Acroname site, or one they linked to. The product I saw was more limited than what I want to do, based on a 16F device.
I won’t actually start prototyping this project until after I get my PIC programmer (May or June), but I have a lot of reading and learning to do before then about I2C and USB. I can at least work with I2C some using an Atom PRO, because there are two sensors I really want to put on WALTER and they both talk only I2C - a digital compass and a TPA81 thermal sensor.
This project will make it a lot easier to read commonly used analog and digital sensors from an OS like Linux or FreeBSD. 
It will even make things easier for Windows users.
8-Dale
You may want to try the parallax SX chip. It has plenty of speed and you can program it in SX/B. The only thing is you would need the SX-Key (If you don’t have one already). The serial communications would be very easy and there are routines for reading of a SPI or I2C bus.
No offense, but I don’t care for Parallax development tools or the way they package their products. I have looked at various products of theirs though, including the SX chips.
While the SX chips may well be able to do what I want, my goal is to learn how to use and develop with Microchip’s PICs. I also want to be able to write my software in a common high level language, not some proprietary language (unless it is assembly language for PIC or another chip I want to use).
I also can’t afford to spend any more money than necessary to do what I want to do, and I can get samples of PIC microcontrollers and others from other companies. Learning PICs has been on my list of things to do for quite awhile now, and I am finally getting around to doing something with it. 
8-Dale
I know why you don’t like parallax as I have several complaints about them too. Although the SX assembly is similar it is a “special” language so there is a learning curve. I would also like to learn the PIC, but now that I’m into the SX it would mean more chips that I don’t need.
I found another neat product called the USB-I2C on the Acroname site, which I like as much as SparkFun. All you are supposed to have to do is plug this into any USB port and then you can communicate with any I2C device on the attached I2C bus. This should also make it easier to talk to I2C sensors from Linux, FreeBSD, and even Windows.
It won’t do anything for non I2C devices, but it’s still cool for PCs and such that don’t have any native way to talk to I2C devices.
8-Dale
i,m thinking about this geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=IM350-AQUA-2B&cat=SYS
just for the wireless connection to my BS2,gotta be the cheapest easyest way wonder how small the MB is
Not sure. Is that a computer or FisherPrices new easy-bake oven? 
It will even make things easier for Windows users.
