APSC 1299 Resource Page( by
Dan
Peirce B.Sc. )
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The resource page currently resides at
Older Files from 2006
Sony IR remote control (the sumovore has two IR remote control sensors) RCA IR remote control (RCA remotes operate with a different carrier frequency than Sony) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sumovore/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vancouverrobotics/
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Microcontrollers (MCU's) are ubiquitous
in our world today. They make up the brain of items like calculators, Palm
pilots, cell phones, MP3 players, DVD players, automatic bread makers,
vending machines, video game boxes, cars, aircraft, cruse missiles, satellites,
mars landers, Furbys, industrial robots and hobby robots. These microcontrollers
are single integrated circuit (IC) computer controllers in which
a computer and input output peripherals have been incorporated into a single
package. They are then embedded in the various products mentioned above.
The development of embedded computer controllers was motivated by the need for reliability. The first project that employed embedded computer control was the space programs Apollo flight navigation system. "...the Apollo on-board computer system was integrated so fully into the spacecraft that designers called it 'the fourth crew member'. Not only did it have navigation functions, but also system management functions governing the guidance and navigation components. It served as the primary source of timing signals for spacecraft systems. The Apollo computer system did not have as long a list of responsibilities as later spacecraft computers, but it still handled a large number of tasks and was the object of constant attention from the crew." The first mass produced embedded controller was for the navigation system of the minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. A big advantage of the embedded design was that the target of the missile could be reprogrammed without the need to rewire the circuits and it remained autonomous once launched. Mass production resulted in reduction of cost. IC's that had cost $1000 each were reduced to about $3 each. "The Minutemanhad two innovations that gave it a long practical service life: a solid rocket booster, and a digital flight computer. This computer was one of the very first recognizably modern embedded systems." "A reprogrammable inertial guidance system was a major risk in the original program. When first proposed, no one had built a digital computer that would fit in a missile." By 1971 the worlds first single IC microprocessor was in commercial production. This was the Intel 4004 which soon lead to the 8008. It was the development of the Intel 8008 that lead Bill Gates to the concept that it may be possible to build a personal computer. From page 13 of The Road Ahead by Bill Gates c1996 "One summer day in 1972, when I was sixteen and Paul was nineteen, he showed me a ten-paragraph article buried on page 143 of Electronics magazine. It announced that a young company called Intel had released a microprocessor chip they'd named the 8008." "A microprocessor is a sinple chip that contains the entire brain of a computer. Paul and I realized that this first microprocessor was very limited, but he was sure that the chips would get more powerful, that computers on a chip would improve very rapidly. This insight of Paul's was the cornerstone of all that we did together later, including the founding of Microsoft" The first MCU was the TMS1000 (1974- from Texas Instruments) and the first commercial product that had an embedded TMS1000 was a speak and spell educational toy. Around 1975 General Instruments produced the first PIC (peripheral interface controller) to be used in conjunction with a 16 bit microprocessor which lacked IO capabilities. Eventually Arizona Microchip Technology was spun off from General Instruments and the PIC was further developed as a stand alone MCU. MCU's are typically programmed in either assembly or in C language (although there are now also instances where a basic interpreter is used). |
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