Maybe the solution is not to avoid flipping that particular bit at all, but rather, to have it reset periodically. Always give someone another chance, even if you have to wait a year first.
I’m reminded by the mention of byte-instead-of-bit and resetting after time of an algorithm for switch debouncing I heard about:
Keep a state of some number of bits (the word size of the microcontroller you’re implementing it on, say), which are regular samples of the state of the switch (that is, state ← (state << 1) | (current_input ? 1 : 0)). Then consider the switch to be logically pressed if any of the bits are 1 (that is, the entire state is not zero) or perhaps if all of them are (whatever fits the application better). This produces a minimum pulse width of sample rate × number of state bits; it’s just a nicely simple way of filtering the digital signal using CPU primitives.
Computer geeks have a term for this: “flipping the bozo bit”.
Maybe the solution is not to avoid flipping that particular bit at all, but rather, to have it reset periodically. Always give someone another chance, even if you have to wait a year first.
Or, as as David pointed out, treat it as a bozo byte.
I’m reminded by the mention of byte-instead-of-bit and resetting after time of an algorithm for switch debouncing I heard about:
Keep a state of some number of bits (the word size of the microcontroller you’re implementing it on, say), which are regular samples of the state of the switch (that is,
state ← (state << 1) | (current_input ? 1 : 0)). Then consider the switch to be logically pressed if any of the bits are 1 (that is, the entire state is not zero) or perhaps if all of them are (whatever fits the application better). This produces a minimum pulse width of sample rate × number of state bits; it’s just a nicely simple way of filtering the digital signal using CPU primitives.