Larry's Blog

SOME MORE APPs !

I have tons of applications I am looking at .
Some are simple, others more complex

I talked with my son Jeff last night. He is the author of the book
"Hacking Tivo: the Expansion, Enhancement and Development Starter Kit ". We inspire each other discussing various
ideas.

We discussed the interaction of 2 things:
1. The interaction of a cluster of PIC16F628's each programmed
the same way with a generic program and wired so that they
could communicate with each other. I have only a vague idea of what the programming would be, but we think of some algorithms comparable
the to rules of the game of LIFE.

2. The interaction of clusters of robots, similarly programmed. This seems
all especially feasible since I am buying PICs now at $2 a chip (see
Mouser Electronics).

We also discussed strategies for hardware. Jeff in software (and in hardware)
never likes to invent the wheel twice. He always thinks in terms of
developing a tool he can use over and over. I am in a tactical retreat at the moment on how to proceed with my experiments, and I think he has inspired me
study what I want in a basic mechanical and electrical hardware platform
for my robot experiments. If I can drop in a card with new software
onto a standard platform of interconnections, I will be making it easier
for myse3lf.

THE AMAZING PIC !!

I would like to report great successes with my
experiments with the PIC16F628 micro-controller.
Thanks to help from guys like Bob Sweeney and a few other
guys like Mike Rioux of the QRA radio club,
a number of my programs are running smoothly.
One has a delay routine with 3 levels of loops
which can give me delays of up to 30 seconds.

Bob Sweeney warned me that the Watch Dog Timer could
be resetting my programs and I believe that was right.

Some of the things I have now done is write a configuration word on all my new chips. I am pleased to say that I got a bunch of PICs from Mouser for only
$2.06 each!
I also disable a lot of interrupts in my opening routines
using system registers option, intcom and pie1.

This afternoon, I will try to program a PIC to count in binary and display the count through 4 LEDs. I was just thinking - another version will count using a seven-segment display.

I will be putting in a program of mine called ROBOT2.ASM which will go forward for a few seconds, then make a right turn and then keep repeating this.

Here is a pic of my 4 bit counter: