Microcontrollers
The are many flavors of Microcontrollers on various levels of abstraction.
- At the bottom we have PICs.
- In the middle we have Basic Stamp like module
- On the highest level we have Teleo and Arduino.
This is the integrated circuit from an Intel 8742, a 8-bit microcontroller that includes a CPU running at 12 MHz, 128 bytes of RAM, 2048 byte of EPROM, and I/O in the same chip. It looks like the one below except with the top skimmed off.
So , what are they?
A microcontroller (or MCU) is a computer-on-a-chip used to control electronic devices. It is a type of microprocessor emphasizing self-sufficiency and cost-effectiveness, in contrast to a general-purpose microprocessor (the kind used in a PC). A typical microcontroller contains all the memory and interfaces needed for a simple application, whereas a general purpose microprocessor requires additional chips to provide these functions. A microcontroller is a single integrated circuit, commonly with the following features:
* central processing unit - ranging from small and simple 4-bit processors to sophisticated 32- or 64-bit processors
* input/output interfaces such as serial ports
* peripherals such as timers and watchdog circuits and signal conversion circuits.
* RAM for data storage
* ROM, EPROM, EEPROM or Flash memory for program storage
* clock generator - often an oscillator for a quartz timing crystal, resonator or RC circuit
Microcontrollers also usually have a variety of input/output interfaces. Serial I/O (UARTs) are very common, and many include analog-to-digital converters, timers, or specialized serial communications interfaces like I²C, Serial Peripheral Interface, USB and Controller Area Network.
Originally, microcontrollers were only programmed in assembly language, or later in C code. Recent microcontrollers integrated with on-chip debug circuitry accessed by In-circuit emulator via JTAG enables a programmer to debug the software of an embedded system with a debugger.
Some microcontrollers have begun to include a built-in high-level programming language interpreter for greater ease of use. The Intel 8052 and Zilog Z8 were available with BASIC very early on, and BASIC is more recently used in the popular BASIC Stamp MCUs.
Microcontrollers trade speed and flexibility against ease of equipment design and low cost. Manufacturers have to balance the need to minimize the chip size against additional functionality.
Finally, it must be mentioned that microcontroller architectures are available from many different vendors in so many varieties that they could rightly belong to a category of their own.
So , why are they great?
Because you can use them to make robots that take over the world - ha ha ha ha ha.
And in more creative and non destructive ways such as art projects.
They can in fact form the back bone of your interactive art piece or interactive installation.
They also for the processing device that goes between sensors of the real physical world and software in the digital world. This mixing of real world events and software n=based digital events is now known as Physical Computing.
In the following sections we will have a look at some of the more commonly used and accessible microcontrollers and the different ways you can use them, but remember, its up to your imagination to really get the best out of them.
my desk isn't usually this messy >
 +++I don't actually use BasicStamp so i won't talk about it here - especially since the PICAXE came out +++ |
