Posted November 15, 2011 by Chris

“Raster-scan displays, like a TV, require a number of synchronization signals to operate. The display is addressed as multiple, consecutive, horizontal lines, which scan from left to right, displaying a large number of pixels on the line as it advances. At the end of a line, the display begins to scan the next line from left to right until the entire frame (consisting of many lines) is displayed.”

Posted November 5, 2011 by Chris

“On this page I will describe how to communicate with HD44780-based LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) using an Atmel AVR microcontroller. The page is mainly meant as a place for me to keep information on the pinouts of the display modules I have used, and to gather info about these displays, for me and others to use.”

Posted October 27, 2011 by Chris

Touch screens seem to be the must-have innovation of the decade as they’re seen in almost every new gadget and gizmo that comes out. But how exactly do they work and how can we use them? This PyroElectro article explains how a standard 4-wire resistive touch screen works and how to get the X/Y coordinates of a touched point using a PIC 18F452 microcontroller.

Posted October 21, 2011 by Chris

“Our purpose here is to explore the potential of PIC12F683 micro for which we need a development board. The good thing is we are going to make our own board. The schematic and the actual board that I have built are shown below. I soldered all the components on a 12 x 8 cm general purpose prototyping board. ”

Posted October 17, 2011 by Chris

This 8-bit graphics card uses a resistor DAC, CPLD and some SRAM for a frame buffer. The article gives a brief overview (in german) of what the system uses, but the devil is in the details: the source code and hardware schematic/board layout are available for download. If you’ve ever wanted to make your own low-profile video card, this design will get you started.

Posted October 6, 2011 by Chris

To go with my other vga oriented projects here’s a VGA interface that is built entirely with TTL discrete logic chips. I built it primarily for the 7400 contest over at dangerous prototypes, so give a comment over there if you like the design. This interface outputs the proper Hsync and Vsync signals using some 74193 counters and uses an 8-state machine to output different color signals to an LCD.

Posted September 29, 2011 by Chris

If you want to make a super simple I/O system that anyone can use, the ps/2 keyboard and a standard 16×2 LCD is all you need. This article explains how to display input from a PS/2 keyboard on a 16×2 lcd with a few example ‘commands’ like backspace and delete. PS/2 and 16×2 LCD theory is explained, the hardware schematic is included and the software available in the article.

Posted September 28, 2011 by Chris

With Flash memory being everywhere these days and extremely cheap, you’d be crazy not to try and understand how to interface to at least one flash memory device. This article uses a sourceforge project to build up an MMC memory device to RS232 serial converter. Hardware schematics and software are available for download.

Posted September 22, 2011 by Chris

This week’s PyroElectro article dives into the PS/2 protocol. Using a PIC microcontroller and a standard PS/2 keyboard, learn how to make your own keyboard interface that translates keypresses and outputs them to a 7 segment LED display. The article explains the theory and has all the hardware schematics and software used in the design available for download.

Posted September 8, 2011 by Chris

One of the primary building blocks of a processor is called the ALU (arithmetic logic unit). It allows for quick and easy arithmetic, sometimes in line with DSP. This project gives a quick introduction for how to make an ALU for a calculator using the Altera UP2 platform.