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Experimenting with New Devices - Part 1
If you were to summarise the developments in microcontrollers over the last few years, you might suggest the movement to 32-bit, mainly through ARM devices, and the rise in open source hardware and...
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Experimenting With New Devices - Part 2
The '5969 Launch Pad - an ideal experimenting platform for FRAMIn this post I look at ways in which to get the most performance out of a small computer system based around the MSP430FR5xxx with...
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Building WiNode 5 - Part 1
Bare Board, 2 layer, 50mm x 50mmTwo weeks ago, you may remember I finished the pcb layout for a new microcontroller board - WiNode 5 - based on my 50 x 50mm standard board footprint.Minimum Build.With...
View ArticleBuilding WiNode 5 - Part 2
Pin MappingWiNode 5 is the successor to earlier WiNodes that were based on the 28 pin DIL ATmega328. The ATmega1284 offers significantly more features and GPIO pins, 32 compared to the 20 of the...
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Building WiNode 5 - Part 3
Some five years have passed since the original WiNode design, and WiNode 5 - consider it to be the Anniversary Edition, has tried to build upon some of the changes that have happened over the...
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The Great MSP430 Bootloader Swindle
Bootloading Blues.The MSP430 is a great little micro, and with some proper marketing, it could easily have provided an alternative to the AVR and PIC. However unclear, obfuscating, archaic...
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More MSP430 Machinations
In the last few weeks I have been acquainting myself with the MSP430 - as a possible low cost candidate for future projects.There are literally hundreds of different variations of the MSP430 - and to...
View ArticleMSP430 Serial Communications
Fun with the MSP430F2013.I have been playing about with the MSP430F2013 for a couple of days now - and finding out what a wonderful little microcontroller it can be.It really is short of both flash...
View ArticleMore Nano Computing - The "Universal Microcontroller"
In this post I discuss the idea of a "Universal Microcontroller" - a 40 pin plug in module that can host mcus from a variety of different manufacturers and families. It is based around a standard 40...
View ArticleInterfacing SPI SRAM & FRAM to the MSP430
This week I have mostly been experimenting with the low end MSP430 series of microcontrollers using the standard entry level LaunchPad.So far, I have looked at serial communications, ADC interfacing...
View ArticleSIMPL for Beginners - Part 1
It's almost 3 years since I started on the SIMPL project, it has come a long way since it's early beginnings.This first post, in a series, is a "catch-up" for those that have come late to the...
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SIMPL meet SIMPLEX - Part 1 - Putting it Together
SIMPLEX - the EXtended Version Of SIMPLSo I took SIMPL running on a LaunchPad, and added a 23K256 RAM chip with 6 jumper wires and a 10K resistor:Overall ViewI'm probably infringing a whole bunch of...
View ArticleSIMPLEX - Part 2 - Running SIMPL Code out of External RAM
Running SIMPL Code out of External RAMIn part 1 I looked at the bulk access to the RAM chip using streaming mode - which takes about 3uS to access a byte. With single byte access, there is the...
View ArticlePorting SIMPL to the MSP430FR4133 Launchpad.
For the last few days I have been using the entry level, MSP430G2553 Launchpad for my code development.This was fine to begin with for basic experimentation with functions, but ultimately I knew that...
View ArticleDiving Into Forth
I have always had a soft-spot for the Forth Programming Language, since first hearing about it as a sixth-former in the very early 1980s when I was running the after-school computer club on Friday...
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ChipStick - A Diminutive Dev Board
Chipstick - A complete "Retro" computer on a 40 x 11mm stickI have recently been looking at the MSP430 as a contender for a general purpose development board. In the last 3 weeks I have looked at...
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The $5 FORTH Computer
The MSP430 makes an excellent choice for a Forth Computer. It already has a 16 bit architecture, and the Von Neuman unified memory space makes dealing with data and instructions somewhat simpler....
View ArticleA Perfect Storm
After 11 years of Blogger, I am increasingly frustrated with it's lack of sensible features - like the all important code window.As such I am looking for alternatives - but for the meantime some recent...
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Bootloading Chipstick - the tiny MSP430 FRAM board
A Post from March to July 2016 - recovered after an accidental deleting session!New and recovered posts can be found at my Wordpress siteJust over a month ago I talked about the MSP430 bootloader -...
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Building Chipstick
Recovered from an accidentally deleted blog!Nobody is expecting you to build a ChipStick from scratch - unless you are very keen.The ability to work with tiny SMT parts is not one everyone possesses,...
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Chipstick - a diminutive MSP430 FRAM Forth Computer
Recovered from an accidental delete!Last week, I wrote about the $5 Forth Computer, and showed an early breadboard version using an MSP430FR2433 mounted on a prototyping adaptor and plugged into a...
View ArticleThe Missing Posts
In July, I accidently deleted about 6 months of posts. These fortunately have now been partially recovered and moved across to my wordpress site.I hope you join me on the other site.
View ArticleBrewing Up a Storm
This post was originally written in early July - during the design phase of myStorm. Unfortunately this and other posts were accidently deleted, but have now been partially recovered.From now this blog...
View ArticleA Storm in the Making
This post was originally written in late July - during the design phase of myStorm. Unfortunately this and other posts were accidently deleted, but have now been partially recovered.From now this blog...
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myStorm - Achieving the $30 Price Breakthrough!
This post was originally written in late July - during the design phase of myStorm. Unfortunately this and other posts were accidently deleted, but have now been partially recovered.From now this blog...
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