Stamp-like Educational Project, Ideas & Comments welcome

In the early days of computers I recall using a device that you could do simple experiments with. It connected to the Apple II joystick port an you could measure light and other simple projects. I don't recall what it was called but I do recall wanting to learn more about electronics at the time. Today a popular controller is the BASIC Stamp by Parallax. But it's not open source and the OS is not user reprogramable. So I thought it might be a fun community project to develop a very simple device that could do simple experiments and be programmed via a serial port (it would be nice if it could be used with any terminal software).

Simple RS232 @ 2400,n,8,1

Power from the RS232 and or 9V battery

I figure the 128bytes of internal EEPROM would be enough for very small programs.

J1 thru J3 are 5 way binding posts so things like external resistors, switches, thermistors, CDS cells, 1wire devices etc could be added by just connecting the wires.

LEDs 1 & 2 would be nice if they were the huge 10mm versions.

SW1 & 2 are for simple projects

I could add an ICD / ICP connector making the firmware updatable.

Suggestions? Comments?

Maybe I'm not looking in the right place but I can't seem to find any source code on your site. Which parts of this project have you already coded?

Mike.

I just drew up this one recently. I've posted the schematic at the moment for review and comments on the idea.

Also I work with the tech-tools assembler, my source code IMO is easy to read and more terse than the microchip mpasm. But it's not commonly used.

Am I right to assume that the answers to my questions are,
There is no source code on my site.
I haven't written any code for the above project.

Why would anyone want to help you develop something when you don't share any of the code you develop (or not)?

Mike.

Re: Stamp-like Educational Project, Ideas & Comments wel

William At MyBlueRoom said:

Suggestions? Comments?

Click to expand...

Why not use a bigger PIC?, that's far too limited.

If you want something to run a slow BASIC interpreter why not investigate the existing code on the net?.

Why not just buy a PICAXE, they are incredibly cheap and ready programmed with a BASIC interpreter!.