I have the following questions:
1. For DS1302 real time clock, there is an option to connect a backup
power source to Vcc1. However, I'm not too sure what source that I
should be using, but I'm thinking something along the lines of a watch
battery. Any suggestions would be very helpful.
2. For the PIC18F2620 MSSP module, if I want to control devices in SPI
mode, is it by default that I can only control one device by SPI with
that microcontroller? I know that I can only communicate to one device
at a time b/c I only have one module, but would it be appropriate if I
have a few unused I/O pins to be used as addressing outputs to a
decoder to have the decoder's output be used as Chip Enable for
setting which device I want to communicate to? Also, would I cause any
damage to a SD card or real time clock chip if I have data streaming
into or out of the slave devices when the chip enable for that
particular slave device isn't set to high?
3. In the event where I can't easily communicate to multiple devices
through SPI on a single microcontroller system, how hard would it be
to write data on the unused memory of the microcontroller?
Thanks for your time in terms of looking into the questions.