Temperature to binary

[stigma]

Hello!

First of all i want to thank you all for making this forum what it is, it's really nice to have a place on the internet where people can discuss electronics with so many bright members.

I was thinking of something fun and challenging i could build to learn, and got this idea.
I want to build a digital thermometer which uses an thermistor to estimate the temperature, then encode the temperature to binary and transfer it to the computer via the serial or usb port then code a interface to display the temperature on the computer.

Is this possible in a simple way ? Is there any ic's designed for this job ?

Im into programming (mostly C and C++), so the coding of the interface to get the temperature shouldn't be the biggest problem.

Hope to get some answers, Thanks.

 

[Exo]

Using a thermistor would require a ADC to convert the measurements to digital before feeding it to the computer.

A simpler method would be to use a I²C thermometer IC such as the dallas 1721 ( https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2004/10/DS1721.pdf ).
I²C is a digital bus wich can be bitbanged directly with the parallel port or the serial port's handshaking lines (using a couple of resistors and transistors)...
You wouldn't even need to calibrate it, as the device returns the temperature directly in degrees celcius.

if you google for it you'll find lots of I²C info on the net and pc code to bitbang a bus.

 

[DirtyLude]

There's an I2c bus already on most PC's right now called smBus. It's virtually identical to I2c and those temp chips will connect to the bus directly. Reading the temp is a different matter. I don't know how to program it, but temp monitor apps like Motherboard Monitor will 'see' and display the temps.

I know there are some guides for doing this on the net.

 

[stigma]

Thanks

Thanks
I'll look it up, the dallas 1721 IC looked quite interesting.