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I'm already thinking about how I can use these PICs when I rebuild my old computer. The old processor was CMOS and with it's now low clock speed it was low power at a time when nobody else wasted a thought on that. A PIC would be a perfect companion to feed it its clock, measure the temperature over a sensor and lower the clock frequency if it gets too warm. Automatic overclocking and temperature monitoring. Not bad for a computer design from 1976 
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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ha ha, you've obviously not seen my crazy experiments with a 6502 and a bunch of PIC's on a breadboard then
I basically got a tube (25) of PIC16F54's and then proceeded to program them as CMOS/Discrete logic.
Rather than use 4 or 5 different chips, you can easily just build the address decoding directly on the I/O lines or even just program the damn things to replicate a 74LS quad and/nand/or/nor/xor if need be.
Couple that with this that I found on eBAY:
Homebrew 6502 + 6809 + Z80 IC kit with SRAM, EPROM, TMS9918, 6847, 6845 VDPs etc
I've now got a working model of a BBC Model B micro running on a bread board, and executing the original OS and BBC Basic V2.
It get's a bit upset that some of the actual hardware is not there, chiefly the 1770 FDC controller, the serial Acia/ULA and the teletext hardware, but in general it works mostly, and can even play back audio.
On top of that, I built this:
GitHub - shawty/sn76489arduino: Project and Supporting files to turn an arduino into a BBC Micro music player.
A couple of years ago, and (as time permits) am currently replacing the PC side of things, with a PIC and an SDCard reader, so I can just put an SD with music on it in the device and have it play them.
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Peter Shaw wrote: I basically got a tube (25) of PIC16F54's and then proceeded to program them as CMOS/Discrete logic.
That's exactly the idea. These are the things I am sure to know how to pull them off:
- Processor clock and mode control, plus reading programs from a serial ROM and loading them into RAM by DMA. This eliminates the need for any ROM in the memory map, allows bootloading and also allows to stay compatible to the old designs which had a front panel with switches and LED displays to enter code by DMA.
- An interrupt controller. The 'official' interrupt controller takes up too much memory space or too many I/O ports with its numerous registers and awkward addressing if memory mapped.
- PS/2 keyboard aand mouse ports. I would not know where to get an oldschool parallel Keyboard these days.
- The front panel I mentioned before: Both hexadecimal keyboard encoders and hex seven segment drivers are long out of production. Both jobs can easily be done by PICs.
Here some stuff I don't have figured out yet:
- A standard IDE interface is basically just a fancy parallel port. I have a 82C55 here, which would do the trick, but a PIC could be faster. The only thing that I have not figured out yet is how to communicate with the main processor. Even a PIC with a PSP does not appear to be up to the job.
- A 'MMU' that allows me to extend the address bus to 24 bits and fetch any byte from up to 16Mb RAM quickly enough. Here the PSP is again too limited. I need three 'registers' for the address extension of three banks and of course I need to read and write bytes to memory, all over that PSP. Also, I doubt that a PIC can easily do the job within the main processor's bus cycles. At 20 MHz it could only execute one instruction per clock pulse of the main processor. It would only have four or perhaps five instructions to do its addressing. Not enough, unless I slow down the main processor.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Nice... a bit costly and over my needs though.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Damn!
If only CDP1802 were still around!
I'd love to hear his take on this!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Woah, thanks a lot!
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Will take a look anyway, I read documentation in Russian (I can't read nor speak Russian) and made it work... maybe I will manage again!
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I'll be happy to beta test the setup when you get it done.
Life is killing me
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It *will* take a while, I'm quite busy  don't hold your breath on it, but I will do it. The smartest thermostat I ever saw is no longer in production...
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Thank you. In new Orleans we have both hot and cold weather that is partially unpredictable.
Life is killing me...……..
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This brings back memories of the systems I used to configure and install back in the 1980s. RTDs for temperature sensors, unshielded twisted pair back to the cabinet, and wired into a multipoint analog input card that measured the resistance to which I applied a non-linear formula to get temperature.
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Look at Texas Instruments, they have a number of small inexpensive ($25) dev boards. They're called Launchpads. I used one on a project at work to start developing code before we had are own hardware. Also, you get the development environment for free, it's called Code Composer Studio (based on Eclipse).
If you use one of their 'Tiva' processors (ARM based) they've got lots of example projects and provide you with code that accesses all of their built in peripherals. The samples and such are include in what they call 'Tivaware'.
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I'm a engineer and has done may projects over the years from amps for my home sound system to computer servers, motion detectors and things in-between. One thing I found is although fun, pure DIY isn't always the most cost effective answer. In your case I'd be tempted to by an off the shelf sensor for the rooms and focus my energies on the smart thermostat itself giving it features and abilities not found elsewhere. I use a smart thermostat and smart vents in the home for climate control. Both systems offer temperature sensors running about 30e-35e. Although they do use batteries in 1 yr, never had to change one (uses cr2032 <1e each). Focus on the fun unique parts of your project and shortcut the other parts. I do the same when cooking
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Mostly I wanted to do the DIY part with a motive to back it up
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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My Home control system for heating is easy
I wrote very little server code, used an RTL software radio dongle, to find and lock into the 400Mhz radio signal my thermostat in the hallway uses to talk to my central heating boiler, then started to intercept the comms and provide my own smart control from one of my servers.
Eventually, I just put an rPI in a box, with the dongle, set up GNU Radio on it to do the intercept, then stuck it on the wall right next to the thermostat.
I turned off ALL the auto management features of the thermostat, switched it all to manual, and now it's my box that controls it.
Everything else, sensors in the rooms etc was all installed when the house was built (We bought a new build) so all I needed was already in place, I just needed to figure out how to hack it.
Most of the honeywell systems communicate on a 400Mhz radio signal, and most RTL SDR dongles can easily scan that range these days.
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So yesterday, a friend tells me he has a bunch of TV episodes in MP4, but they are stuttering when he plays them in VLC. A quick check, and they aren't indexed, so a quick run through Avidemux to copy the video and audio streams to a new file will fix that.
So ... Rather than drag and drop, build index, save, wait, ENTER, unload, rinse-and-repeat I knock up a quick app to do them for me: and it works: opens AviDemux, loads the file, indexes it, saves it, closes Avidemux. It even shows progress on a DataGridView by removing each file as it's processed. And that's the bad bit - since this was a quick and dirty one-off app, I ... well ... I ... used Application.DoEvents. Sorry.
And it nagged at me all night. "Shouldn't have done that, you know. You know better than that, Griff. Jerk move, Griff".
And it was right. So I wasted half an hour this morning to convert it to a BackgroundWorker, with proper progress reporting via the DGV and a read-only textbox, complete with a "Stop!" button, and folder(s) persistence via the settings file.
For an app I'll never use again ... I hate it when that happens ...
Does anyone else get this, or is it just me?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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It's not just you. I've also been known to waste time in the same way. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I'm worse. I'll put in a heck of a lot of time in an application I'll never use again, and then I'll grow tired of it and abandon it when it's 95% ready...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
modified 18-Feb-19 7:03am.
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Keep the ROI in mind. Do it like pure psychopaths  .
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You could have just used a console app with a simple command line?
But no, you had to have a fancy pants UI with buttons and stuff.
modified 18-Feb-19 6:20am.
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 I didn't want to have to type the folder paths ... and I'd have to test it, which means I have to write a .BAT file to test it ... and then test that ... 
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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No one off, quick and dirty, app is complete until it has some fancy animations.
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