Getting started with an 32-bit ARM-based microcontroller is always a little daunting. There’s a plethora of available microcontrollers, platforms, development boards, tools, and software. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on what is best to use, and debates between the available options range in tone from pleasant and insightful...
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Hello! I'm Hammond (kiwih on Github) and I like to tinker and build things!
Walkthrough: Reading an Agilent oscilloscope via RS232
Enabling data transfer from 'scope to PC
Recently I acquired an older Agilent 54621A oscilloscope for my at-home workstation, and yes, that is a floppy drive on the front.
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Rescuing a trashed LED Matrix
Reverse engineering a simple embedded system!
I was cycling through a light industrial area in Auckland City when I came across a rubbish bin awaiting pickup on the side of the road. It caught my eye as it was practically overflowing with discarded LED Matrix modules - big ones, about a foot in each dimension! I...
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The PIC16F-antastic picmicro clone
Can we emulate a PIC16F core using an FPGA?
In this project I set out to create a cycle-accurate FPGA-ready clone of the picmicro-midrange core, i.e. it is a PIC on an FPGA! While there are other FPGA ready clones of PICs, I still wanted to make my own as a learning experience. As a point of difference, however,...
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An LCD on a PIC16F
Making an SSD1306 work under serious resource constraints
The goal here was to take a common (and cheap) SSD1306 LCD module and drive it using a PIC16F677A. Now, there’s a lot of code online - libraries and such - for driving an SSD1306, but the problem is that these all use buffered memory (i.e. a temporary screenbuffer to...
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