Is there a site like this one for electronics projects?
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I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project. The project essentially shows how to design memory circuits for the Motorola 6800 series of CPU (6809, 6502, etc.) My work used a Heathkit ET-3400, which is a rudimentary computer that exposes its key circuits on a breadboard. This thing is almost 30 years old, but it still fairly widespread on e-Bay, at colleges, etc. I got mine off e-Bay for about $70 quite recently. My educational background is in Computer Science, and in writing the article I would assume that same educational background in my readers. I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here. However, in searching article categories, I get the sense that Code Project articles as a whole reside at a very high level of abstraction. Even in the "Systems" categories, I don't find much machine language, assembly language, or even C. This high-level focus would, I think, make my article seem out-of-place here. So, does anyone know of a similar site for computer / electronics engineering? Also, I was a bit surprised at the results of my article searching. This is a "code" site, to be sure, but must that mean user-mode, auto-garbage-collected software only? Is there not a "code" a site where one might see analogous articles for C and assembly language? If not, why isn't anyone at all interested in doing this sort of thing on a not-for-profit basis? It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
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I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project. The project essentially shows how to design memory circuits for the Motorola 6800 series of CPU (6809, 6502, etc.) My work used a Heathkit ET-3400, which is a rudimentary computer that exposes its key circuits on a breadboard. This thing is almost 30 years old, but it still fairly widespread on e-Bay, at colleges, etc. I got mine off e-Bay for about $70 quite recently. My educational background is in Computer Science, and in writing the article I would assume that same educational background in my readers. I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here. However, in searching article categories, I get the sense that Code Project articles as a whole reside at a very high level of abstraction. Even in the "Systems" categories, I don't find much machine language, assembly language, or even C. This high-level focus would, I think, make my article seem out-of-place here. So, does anyone know of a similar site for computer / electronics engineering? Also, I was a bit surprised at the results of my article searching. This is a "code" site, to be sure, but must that mean user-mode, auto-garbage-collected software only? Is there not a "code" a site where one might see analogous articles for C and assembly language? If not, why isn't anyone at all interested in doing this sort of thing on a not-for-profit basis? It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
Hi, I don't know of any electronics or low-level software site, similar to CodeProject. I guess nobody would mind you publishing such articles around here, however the audience probably would be very limited. I have been using 6800, 6502, and many more, myself; one of my first achievements was upgrading a Motorola 6800 demo board to a 6809 (it had 256 bytes of RAM, not MB or GB!); I also implemented a simple Basic interpreter for another 6809 board (with a whopping 64KB), and much more. All of this is indeed 30 years ago, I wasn't aware those chips still are of interest to anyone. I have since developed a fully automated model railroad track (with 2 Macs, several Microchips, and C; I should port it to PC and .NET as those Macs are getting really old by now); I also have developed dozens of microprocessor cross-assemblers and simulators, some in Fortran, a lot in C, and the latest ones in C#. So I probably would be reading (and commenting on) the articles you might write, if and when I see them. Cheers.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly indented, and rendered in a non-proportional font; hint: use PRE tags in forum messages
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Hi, I don't know of any electronics or low-level software site, similar to CodeProject. I guess nobody would mind you publishing such articles around here, however the audience probably would be very limited. I have been using 6800, 6502, and many more, myself; one of my first achievements was upgrading a Motorola 6800 demo board to a 6809 (it had 256 bytes of RAM, not MB or GB!); I also implemented a simple Basic interpreter for another 6809 board (with a whopping 64KB), and much more. All of this is indeed 30 years ago, I wasn't aware those chips still are of interest to anyone. I have since developed a fully automated model railroad track (with 2 Macs, several Microchips, and C; I should port it to PC and .NET as those Macs are getting really old by now); I also have developed dozens of microprocessor cross-assemblers and simulators, some in Fortran, a lot in C, and the latest ones in C#. So I probably would be reading (and commenting on) the articles you might write, if and when I see them. Cheers.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly indented, and rendered in a non-proportional font; hint: use PRE tags in forum messages
I may still post my project here. It does eventually lead to a compiler and an associated app framework. The language is a purely functional, applicative-order language like Scheme, and the framework supports half- and single-precision real-number data types. Most of this - including the master copy of the framework- is written in C. For the framework, this is "if-then-goto" type C which is designed to be hand-assembled onto any platform and emitted by the compilers. Parts of this have been ported to the ET-3400, Microchip PICKits, and the Tandy Color Computer II. Also: Do you mean that you used Microchip "PIC" chips in your railroad project? Those have been another big area-of-interest for me. It is very easy and cheap to program a PIC chip these days. And I was surprised at how well my language and library worked with the PIC (which is not considered very compiler-friendly). For example, for the 16-series PIC, the stack is limited to seven return addresses. But in a compiler with tail recursion optimization, it is possible to calculate things like 33 factorial, which conceptually have well more than 7 nested function calls. I like this! Also, if anyone thinks that all of this is a colossal waste of time, then please let me know. I did not realize that people were doing basically the same thing 30+ years ago. Maybe that should be a wake-up call...?
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I may still post my project here. It does eventually lead to a compiler and an associated app framework. The language is a purely functional, applicative-order language like Scheme, and the framework supports half- and single-precision real-number data types. Most of this - including the master copy of the framework- is written in C. For the framework, this is "if-then-goto" type C which is designed to be hand-assembled onto any platform and emitted by the compilers. Parts of this have been ported to the ET-3400, Microchip PICKits, and the Tandy Color Computer II. Also: Do you mean that you used Microchip "PIC" chips in your railroad project? Those have been another big area-of-interest for me. It is very easy and cheap to program a PIC chip these days. And I was surprised at how well my language and library worked with the PIC (which is not considered very compiler-friendly). For example, for the 16-series PIC, the stack is limited to seven return addresses. But in a compiler with tail recursion optimization, it is possible to calculate things like 33 factorial, which conceptually have well more than 7 nested function calls. I like this! Also, if anyone thinks that all of this is a colossal waste of time, then please let me know. I did not realize that people were doing basically the same thing 30+ years ago. Maybe that should be a wake-up call...?
Yes, I designed a network with some five nodes, each node has a PIC 16F84 (it was one of the first flash devices, has 1K instructions, no serial port) and controls 32 digital power outputs (points and signals) and 32 digital inputs (hall sensors). They are networked with a simplified CAN protocol, and two of them use RS232C to interface to the Macs. It was all programmed in assembly, without using interrupts (cannot afford to loose that latency time!), with a cooperative reschedule every 64 cycles.
Member 3680785 wrote:
a colossal waste of time
that is for you to decide; is it an interesting pass time? (yes) is it economically or otherwise justified? (no) If you plan on writing some articles anyhow, then you could easily publish them here (or here and elsewhere). Even if you have your own web site, CP still is a good place as it gets thoroughly scanned by Google's and other bots. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly indented, and rendered in a non-proportional font; hint: use PRE tags in forum messages
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I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project. The project essentially shows how to design memory circuits for the Motorola 6800 series of CPU (6809, 6502, etc.) My work used a Heathkit ET-3400, which is a rudimentary computer that exposes its key circuits on a breadboard. This thing is almost 30 years old, but it still fairly widespread on e-Bay, at colleges, etc. I got mine off e-Bay for about $70 quite recently. My educational background is in Computer Science, and in writing the article I would assume that same educational background in my readers. I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here. However, in searching article categories, I get the sense that Code Project articles as a whole reside at a very high level of abstraction. Even in the "Systems" categories, I don't find much machine language, assembly language, or even C. This high-level focus would, I think, make my article seem out-of-place here. So, does anyone know of a similar site for computer / electronics engineering? Also, I was a bit surprised at the results of my article searching. This is a "code" site, to be sure, but must that mean user-mode, auto-garbage-collected software only? Is there not a "code" a site where one might see analogous articles for C and assembly language? If not, why isn't anyone at all interested in doing this sort of thing on a not-for-profit basis? It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
Hi,
Member 3680785 wrote:
I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project.
If you are looking for other engineers working with the 8-bit microcontroller architecture the I would recommend the Microchip forums[^]. I recently completed an underwater ROV project related to acoustic tracking/positioning. Some of the members at that forum are extremely helpful... especially for people like me lacking an electronic background.
Member 3680785 wrote:
I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here.
I would be very interested in having a look at your project. The Motorola 680x0 assembly instructions are much simpler than Intel x86. Its a great starting point for students and/or hobbyists interested in assembly. It is my opinion that CS students should be required to learn 8-bit assembly first.
Member 3680785 wrote:
It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
I agree. We went to the moon with the 16-bit Apollo Guidance Computer[^] at 2 Mhz. Soon we will need a terahertz processor just to boot into our BloatOS™ and open a word processor. :) Welcome to codeproject, -David Delaune
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Hi,
Member 3680785 wrote:
I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project.
If you are looking for other engineers working with the 8-bit microcontroller architecture the I would recommend the Microchip forums[^]. I recently completed an underwater ROV project related to acoustic tracking/positioning. Some of the members at that forum are extremely helpful... especially for people like me lacking an electronic background.
Member 3680785 wrote:
I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here.
I would be very interested in having a look at your project. The Motorola 680x0 assembly instructions are much simpler than Intel x86. Its a great starting point for students and/or hobbyists interested in assembly. It is my opinion that CS students should be required to learn 8-bit assembly first.
Member 3680785 wrote:
It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
I agree. We went to the moon with the 16-bit Apollo Guidance Computer[^] at 2 Mhz. Soon we will need a terahertz processor just to boot into our BloatOS™ and open a word processor. :) Welcome to codeproject, -David Delaune
Agreed about the Microchip forums... those guys are really helpful, and willing to give advice, even to a "noob." That is a big deal for me. I have been asked why I don't use the "Atmel AVR" chip, which does many of the same things as the PICs, but supposedly with a more modern, less awkward architecture. A big part of the reason I avoid Atmel is that I've been really turned off by the attitude that their proponents seem to have... it's almost a religious anti-PIC zeal. Using a PIC, on the other hand, there are a wealth of application notes, starter kits, etc. available to ease the learning process... Since there seems to be no big objection, I probably will post my article(s) here. If I post articles for all my PIC, CoCo, and ET-3400 projects, then taken together these would form a kind of "Computer Engineering for Programmers" course. What I would really like to see eventually is an open-source, grass-roots effort to build a clean sheet alternative to Wintel, and the Internet. There's too much rotten wood in the current system. The Intel instruction set and Unicode are the two examples that pop to mind. When do we ever get a real "version 2.0?" Never??
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Agreed about the Microchip forums... those guys are really helpful, and willing to give advice, even to a "noob." That is a big deal for me. I have been asked why I don't use the "Atmel AVR" chip, which does many of the same things as the PICs, but supposedly with a more modern, less awkward architecture. A big part of the reason I avoid Atmel is that I've been really turned off by the attitude that their proponents seem to have... it's almost a religious anti-PIC zeal. Using a PIC, on the other hand, there are a wealth of application notes, starter kits, etc. available to ease the learning process... Since there seems to be no big objection, I probably will post my article(s) here. If I post articles for all my PIC, CoCo, and ET-3400 projects, then taken together these would form a kind of "Computer Engineering for Programmers" course. What I would really like to see eventually is an open-source, grass-roots effort to build a clean sheet alternative to Wintel, and the Internet. There's too much rotten wood in the current system. The Intel instruction set and Unicode are the two examples that pop to mind. When do we ever get a real "version 2.0?" Never??
I am an Electronics Engineer who gets lumbered with Windows programming as I am the only one who has a software skill set. Serial Ports are my Friends! I for one am very interested in any (& all) articles which deal with hardware and interfacing in general. Having been at one company who used Atmel and have joined one that is a Microchip advocate I can say that Atmel AVR is more modern but will get in the way of some dirty tricks you can pull with Microchip (MPLAB). I have found the only place that will aid 'Hardies' with an answer to questions quickly tends to be MSDN and I have found C# Friends, www.debugging.com/bugs. Also any news of Levent Saltuklaroglu(?) author of I/O Ports Unsensored. Seem quite a friendly guy who knew what I and by the sound others need to know! Glenn
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Hi,
Member 3680785 wrote:
I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project.
If you are looking for other engineers working with the 8-bit microcontroller architecture the I would recommend the Microchip forums[^]. I recently completed an underwater ROV project related to acoustic tracking/positioning. Some of the members at that forum are extremely helpful... especially for people like me lacking an electronic background.
Member 3680785 wrote:
I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here.
I would be very interested in having a look at your project. The Motorola 680x0 assembly instructions are much simpler than Intel x86. Its a great starting point for students and/or hobbyists interested in assembly. It is my opinion that CS students should be required to learn 8-bit assembly first.
Member 3680785 wrote:
It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
I agree. We went to the moon with the 16-bit Apollo Guidance Computer[^] at 2 Mhz. Soon we will need a terahertz processor just to boot into our BloatOS™ and open a word processor. :) Welcome to codeproject, -David Delaune
OK- I have written about 15 pages complete with diagrams, and I doubt I am even 50% done. So, I think this is too much, and am considering a change in strategy. Currently, my article is broad. It has a basic explanation of the formats I use to present data, i.e. electronic schematics and the "rat's nest" diagram. There are passages of text and graphics devoted to explaining DC circuits, transistor-based logic, and so on. I can see this developing into a fairly valuable 40-page summary of "Computer Engineering for Computer Programmers," but (knowing quite a few programmers) I am not sure this will be considered exciting. I do not want to post anything that will attract "1" votes. I have also considered making a purposeful effort to re-frame the article along the lines of a "Minimalist DMA Example." This might even entail modifications to the circuits presented. I can envision ways to replace transistors with pull-down resistors. This would achieve the same result but with a loss of generality, extensibility, etc. This could be posted here, or in another forum, but in any case the overall thrust of the article would be different. There is a Yahoo group for ET-3400, I am considering posting there as well. The main obstacle is that I am less familiar with the format.
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Hi,
Member 3680785 wrote:
I have been working on an electronics project, and I want to post it somewhere in a format similar to the articles here at Code Project.
If you are looking for other engineers working with the 8-bit microcontroller architecture the I would recommend the Microchip forums[^]. I recently completed an underwater ROV project related to acoustic tracking/positioning. Some of the members at that forum are extremely helpful... especially for people like me lacking an electronic background.
Member 3680785 wrote:
I also have some software-related articles involving the 6800 and the ET-3400 which I could post as a sequel. So, I initially considered posting this memory project here.
I would be very interested in having a look at your project. The Motorola 680x0 assembly instructions are much simpler than Intel x86. Its a great starting point for students and/or hobbyists interested in assembly. It is my opinion that CS students should be required to learn 8-bit assembly first.
Member 3680785 wrote:
It seems that there is a profusion of high-level application software being coded in the public domain, and I feel that the worlds of system programming and computer engineering ought to have something similar.
I agree. We went to the moon with the 16-bit Apollo Guidance Computer[^] at 2 Mhz. Soon we will need a terahertz processor just to boot into our BloatOS™ and open a word processor. :) Welcome to codeproject, -David Delaune
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I finally wrapped this up. (I had trouble with my old CodeProject ID so I'm using another - sorry!) I ended up posting the project on Yahoo Groups. The URL is http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ET-3400/files/WBeau30/[^]
Hi Beau, I have looked over your DMA project document and it looks like a very interesting hobby project. I looked on ebay and found a Heathkit ET-3400 for about $40 bucks. Thats a great deal in my opinion. I have seen bread-board and 'Starter-Kit' packages at twice the cost. Good luck with your project. Btw looks like someone down-voted your comment. I will up-vote your comment to negate the negative value. Best Wishes, -David Delaune
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Hi Beau, I have looked over your DMA project document and it looks like a very interesting hobby project. I looked on ebay and found a Heathkit ET-3400 for about $40 bucks. Thats a great deal in my opinion. I have seen bread-board and 'Starter-Kit' packages at twice the cost. Good luck with your project. Btw looks like someone down-voted your comment. I will up-vote your comment to negate the negative value. Best Wishes, -David Delaune
I have posted my project at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5102161/dma_project.doc. Hopefully this will be easier to access than the Yahoo Groups posting.