more basic stamp IO

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I think it would be an interesting project to make a board that connected a microcontroller to that Opto22 board. I've also been looking at bus transceivers, latches, and multiplexers. I'll have to order some chips to experiment but it might be easy to get 32 (or more) I/O from a BS2. The idea is that you have multiple 8 bit chips, some for input, some for output, the 74XX138 selects to enable 1 of 8 chips based on the binary address inputs. The outputs latch what the BS2 outputs, the inputs enable to read that selected input. The program would do something like read the inputs, process the logic, write to the outputs. There is an output enable on the latches so you can turn them all off at once if desired.

I've been interested in investing some money in a project this year to try to see if I can make it grow, Basic Stamp and MicroController to Opto22 boards might be an interesting investment. I would like to see what's required for in circuit serial programming(ICSP) so users could program from the USB port. I'd also want the Basic Stamp to be programmable without removing from the board.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN
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I asked the same questions on another NG. Best suggestion was to use this output exapander:

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Parallax also sells a USB port to stamp module. It has the prints so you could copy it if desired.

Karl

It has basic stamp source code examples to add up to 64 outs to a stamp.

Reply to
Karl Townsend

What used to be really nice for special controllers is the OS-9 operating system from Microware (not the Apple Mac version, which was totally different). The boot code can be in ROM -- or the entire OS and application. You can built the application in 6809 assembly language, or with a BASIC-09 incremental compiler, or with a C or Pascal compiler. Once you have it doing what you want, you can burn the entire thing into ROM, and only need RAM for the stack where all transient data lives. You can have it talk to serial or parallel I/O, or to floppy drives or to hard disk drives. I even wirewrapped an interface for and wrote the drivers for an old Calcomp drum plotter for my SWTP 6809 system.

Of course, these days, OS-9 is tailored for the 68000 family of processors, and costs a *lot* more. It is no longer a hobby OS -- instead, it is used for embedded controllers.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

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The current hot thing is the Arduino.

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Kevin Gallimore

Reply to
axolotl

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I just thought of an idea that might work for Basic Stamp users and PIC microcontrollers. Make a board with an Opto22 compatible 50 pin header connected to a PIC microcontroller. Have the board ship with a program in the PIC to receive serial I/O from the Basic Stamp (or any other controller, or even a PC) so the Stamp would use 2 pins and be able to control up to 32 Opto22 I/O. Or, the user could write thier own control program in the PIC if they had an in circuit serial programmer. I would like to use a PIC with more I/O so a LCD display and keypad could be plugged in if desired.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

Far more capability than what I'm using. But what is arduino software???

My biggest issue is ease of programming. Basic stamp basic is easy and well documented.

Reply to
Karl Townsend

I could be your first customer.

Say, I need an LCD display for my Basic Stamp. Any suggestions?

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Right on. AND I'll know how to do it right after I've done it the other way. Plus, I've got a history of always looking down at the sparkies (EEs). Real engineers always ran the project and delegated this work. My main function was to ask, "why aren't you done yet?" and, "We need this additional function". I guess this little job is payback.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Pretty much C and C++.

Kevin Gallimore

Reply to
axolotl

Hoping I can come up with something in a reasonable amount of time, so far something has went wrong at work and I've had to stay over, takes away from hobby time but at least it's paid overtime.

I've seen a couple of serial LCD's at parallax.com for around $25-$30 but their may be less expensive ones available.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

Karl, if your sorting puts EE's and "real" engineers in disjoint sets I'm not sure that I like you any more.

What sort of engineer is "real" to you, and what traumatic experience did you have in your youth at the hands of an EE?

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Try being a tech who has to take orders from both MEs and EEs.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Ooh, that sounds like fun.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

You might want to do that if you'd like readers to discount your tongue-in-cheek posts as trivial.

Roger that!

Reply to
Don Foreman

Or a VIC-20 with the software in a game cartridge? :) Most of them only needed +5 VDC @ 1A and had a nice I/O port. As far as controlling four motors, that could be done sequentially, which would reduce the I/O requirements quite a bit.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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I've been doing some work on using a PIC microcontroller to send and receive serial data to work with Opto22 boards. So far what I'm working on is compatible with the 50 pin header boards from 8 I/O to 24 I/O, the 32 I/O board has a different pinout on its header. I think I can read/write the 24 I/O points, plus communication, plus have an in circuit programming and debugging port, all with a 40 pin PIC microcontroller.

I plan to have the PIC preprogrammed as a serial I/O board to work with Basic Stamps, PC's or whatever else has a serial port. Most of what I've done so far has to do with the schematic and board layout, connector pinouts, and hardware for the project. I'm far enough along now with hardware design that I need to build a prototype on a breadboard and start developing and testing the software.

This board should be addressable either in hardware or software, meaning 2 pins from the Basic Stamp could be used for 24, 48, 72, 96,... I/O points, you could have 6,144 I/O points with an 8 bit address and 24 I/O per module, but the update wouldn't be very fast ;-)

And.. The PIC microcontroller on this I/O expander board would be programmable to turn the Opto22 board into a stand alone PLC type controller.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

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