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[Reply #435 on:]

I'll never forget the smell of conductive foam exposed to UV light!

It's funny how you remember such things.

I had two big EPROM erasers running full time.

That's why I built the emulator, got sick of swapping chips.

______
Rob

[Reply #436 on:]

I'll never forget the smell of conductive foam exposed to UV light!

It's funny how you remember such things.

I had two big EPROM erasers running full time.

That's why I built the emulator, got sick of swapping chips.

______
Rob

Memories are coming back. I, too, had a ROM emulator later on. Very handy.

[Reply #437 on:]

6809 was the best 8-bit microprocessor ever made,

You know, Freescale still sells microcontrollers that are pretty 6809-like.  Also microcontrollers with a 68000 core ("Coldfire") (my particular favorite, I think.)
TI's MSP430 is a pretty nice architecture as well, in the same sort of CISCy vein...

[Reply #438 on:]

We used Motorola chips at work mostly but for my personal stuff I preferred Z8/80/180 etc.

I left the game for many years and never got back into either on my return. I guess times have moved on and for me it's all AVR and ARM these days.

______
Rob

[Reply #439 on:]

6809 was the best 8-bit microprocessor ever made,

You know, Freescale still sells microcontrollers that are pretty 6809-like.  Also microcontrollers with a 68000 core ("Coldfire") (my particular favorite, I think.)
TI's MSP430 is a pretty nice architecture as well, in the same sort of CISCy vein...

The Freescale chips don't seem to come in any sort of convenient package and they require lots of decoupling capacitors to get them to work properly. Nice architecture though.

[Reply #440 on:]

just picked up some blue copper clad. will be a fun little change!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-sht-Copper-Clad-Laminate-CEM-047-4-x-6-SS-BLUE-/310420464500?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4846806374

[Reply #441 on:]

Not a purchase but I didn't want to start a thread just to brag.

I got my FREE SchmartShield for Arduino today.

[Reply #442 on:]

Not a purchase but I didn't want to start a thread just to brag.

I got my FREE SchmartShield for Arduino today.

There was something out there for free and I wasn't notified?  Damn.

They sent me a 50% off ad earlier this week and I bought some more Schmartboards from them.  Those things work.  Then again, so does "flood and wick" but I like the Schmartboard way of doing things.

[Reply #443 on:]

Not a purchase but I didn't want to start a thread just to brag.

I got my FREE SchmartShield for Arduino today.

There was something out there for free and I wasn't notified?  Damn.

They sent me a 50% off ad earlier this week and I bought some more Schmartboards from them.  Those things work.  Then again, so does "flood and wick" but I like the Schmartboard way of doing things.

You snooze you lose! Yeah, they had a giveaway of your choice of any of their boards if you posted a picture of a project using one of their products.
I really like the way their stuff works too, although "flood and wick" works perfectly for me as well.
I wish this week's sale had included their SMD to DIP adapters too, I would have really stocked up on those.

[Reply #444 on:]

Bottom feeding again.. Hit a great one.

20 pcs AT90S4414... Fourteen dollars shipped.  40 pin (32 GPIO) AVR, same setup as the 8515 but with half the storage.  I have a number of ideas for these, and at under a dollar for a 40 pin AVR, I can afford to blow a few up.. One is 8 channels of RGB fading per chip, with SPI interface.. I am thinking that using these even as support chips for a 328 or Mega is a fine use.   

[Reply #445 on:]

6809 was the best 8-bit microprocessor ever made,

You know, Freescale still sells microcontrollers that are pretty 6809-like.  Also microcontrollers with a 68000 core ("Coldfire") (my particular favorite, I think.)
TI's MSP430 is a pretty nice architecture as well, in the same sort of CISCy vein...

You prompted me to take a closer look at the Freescale controllers. Since Schmartboard makes an LQFP to DIP board, I decided to try a MC9S12 in a 48 pin package. The instruction set is very much like the 6809, as you point out.

[Reply #446 on:]

Does anyone remember the "computer" from 70's made out of long plastic switches and wires and lights? 

Yep. I had one. It came as a kit and I had to assemble it. The hardest part was the Ground wire, which looped past all the lightbulbs and more less around the box. The kit had one roll of insulated wire, so I had to get the insulation off wire for this. Edited - fixed some typos

As I remember each switch was basically 8 pairs of Break/Make  (ie either the bottom wires was connect or the top wires) with 3 hoes for each and every connection. There were 10 switches and lights. This gave about 80 "gates" (ie you needed two to make an AND)

Nope, no leftovers of that in my attic. Only in the attic between my ears.

[Reply #447 on:]

Back to the topic: Minor Xmas gift to myself - stocking filler - just for fun - an RGB LED Shield that was on xmas-sale on my local Arduino-pusher. 3 TLC5940s and 4x4 RGB LEDs.

Also purchased (the reason for being on that site) a replacement USB2Serial adapter as the previous one had lost it's blue magic smoke.

[Reply #448 on:]

Half-purchase, half-gift, an Arturia minibrute analog synth.

I love it.

I've already posted 4 demos of it to soundcloud.  And I haven't even tried hooking it up to my other gear yet, I've only so far messed around with its internal features and simple multitrack recordings in Garageband.

here's a partial cover I did of a song I like, all sounds including drums synthesized by the minibrute:

[Reply #449 on:]

'Mini Brute' great name for a great bit of kit.

I treated myself to a stylophone, monotron and a nebulophone - I have spent hours playing the stylophone through the monotron filter - adding the stylophone to the monotron overcomes the common criticism of the monotrons hopeless keyboard.

Duane B