John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Sep 7 21:09:24 CDT 2005
I don't really have any plans yet. These are little ICs with all the pieces of a computer built right in, including (in some cases) timers, analog to digital converters, i/o pins, ram, rom etc. Thus you build an application that needs a little processor power, program it in assembler, C or basic, store the program in the processor and then run it. For example you could get a tiny little 8 pin device that could run a stepper motor. You use 4 pins for the stepper control and another pair as a serial interface to a master controller. Program the stepper controller to be a wheel of a robot. The little 8 pin pic just turns the wheel but it can now respond to "commands" like "forward", "Reverse", "Speed=X" etc. The stepper controller can be programmed to ramp up / down the wheel "speed", and all that kind of stuff. By having the stepper controller a "unit", you can then put two of them onto a robot and have the master controller just send the commands to the two wheels to cause the robot to move. The master controller can concentrate on other things, while the stepper controller just controls the stepper motor and thus a wheel on the robot. These chips have serial i/o built in called I2C which is a master/slave serial interface which allows the chips to talk to each other at pretty high speeds, with libraries already written to allow the chips to "know how" to use the port. These controllers are dirt cheap, like a dollar or two for the little ones with 8 pins and 2 kbytes of flash (rom) memory up to $10 for a big controller with 40 pins and 8k or even more flash ram. What costs much more is the setup. Purchased boards for programming them run $40 to $70, the basic (or C ) compiler runs $80-$100 etc. So it isn't a cheap hobby, although it also isn't like owning an ATV or something like that. $200 can set you up with everything you need to build a dozen PIC boards for playing with. Basically these are the little ucontrollers used to control microwave ovens, televisions and other such stuff. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: http://folding.stanford.edu/ -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bartow Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 4:07 PM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] OT: PIC micro controllers No, I have my pet projects that are way too time intensive but not with these. What you planning? -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Is anyone here playing or working with PIC Microcontrollers? I have been interested in controller applications forever (in my previous life I was into electronics), and in fact I designed a vending machine while I was working down in Mexico that used a Z-World SBC. I have discovered that you can request engineering samples of these little beauties (PIC u controllers) and am starting to gather the stuff to program them. I was just wondering if anyone else does this stuff. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com