Circuit Cellar Ink 260
March 2012

Table of Contents

4 CJ Abate	HTML Task Manager Creativity in Design
8 CJ Abate	HTML New Product News ECM-CDV, EBM-CDV, and EQM-CDV Intel Atom-based SBCs from Avalue Technology, Inc. FM25V20 2-Mb high-performance serial FRAM device from Ramtron International Corp. MAX16841 fixed-frequency offline light-emitting diode (LED) driver from Maxim Integrated Products ADM3054 5-kV RMS signal-isolated CAN physical-layer transceiver from Analog Devices, Inc. model 2210-005 low-noise, single-axis MEMS accelerometer module from Silicon Designs, Inc. LDU05, LDU07, LDU14 and LDU20 series of miniature LED driver modules from XP Power Ltd. Quartus II software version 11.1 with support for Arria V, Cyclone V and Stratix V devices from Altera Corp. AT91SAM9G45-EVK evaluation kit from Atmel Corp. Matrix MXE-5300 series of rugged, quad core, fanless embedded computers from ADLINK Technology, Inc. MCP9808 silicon temperature sensor from Microchip Technology, Inc. SoM-3517M system-on-module (SoM) based on the TI ARM Cortex-A8 processor from EMAC, Inc. DK-LM3S-DRV8312 motor control kit with LM3S818 microcontroller and DRV8312 motor driver from Texas Instruments, Inc.
15 David Tweed	HTML Test Your EQ
Questions & Answers 16 Nan Price	Advanced Robot Technologies An Interview with Hanno Sander Electronics have always captivated Hanno Sander, who began programming at an early age. His interests in science and technology led him to start his own company, which enables him to collaborate with other engineers to design robots and create development environments. In January, I interviewed Hanno about his engineering interests, book writing, and the future of artificial intelligence.
20 Lawrence Foltzer	Robot Navigation Position Determination from Acoustic Delay Triangulation Robot navigation doesn't have to be complicated to be effective. You can implement the mathematics of navigation described here to chart a course to a target destination while staying within the native bounds of the 8-bit microcontroller and 8-bit mathematics. Download: Foltzer-260.zip
26 Ian Bromley	Last Chance to Enter the DesignSpark chipKIT(TM) Challenge Now in its final month, the DesignSpark chipKIT(TM) design challenge for energy-efficient applications is still open for submissions. So, if you're quick, ...
28 Chris Cantrell	All-in-One Joystick Build a Propeller-Based TV Gaming Platform The only thing more exciting than gaming is gaming on a system you develop. Ready to hack an old joystick? You can remove the circuit board and add a custom game system that reads games from an SD card. This article details how to create a virtual machine in a Propeller chip for the arcade hardware of a classic game. Download: Cantrell-260.zip
36 Charles Edmondson	The Rainbow Color Reader Part 1: A Talking Color Identifier for the Visually Impaired The Rainbow Color Reader is a small, lightweight, inexpensive color identifier designed for the visually impaired. The design is built on a single processor that stores sound samples. It uses red, green and blue LEDs to identify colors and a speaker to provide sound. The first part of this article series details everything from the hardware to the speech software. Download: Edmondson-260.zip
42 Alexander Pozhitkov	The NakedCPU Part 2: Experimentation and Communication The first part of this two-part series provided an overview of the NakedCPU platform, which is designed to provide full access to hardware and a CPU without any operating system restrictions. This article explores the BIOS power-on code, noise production, and reading and writing from the parallel port. Experiments with a LAN adapter and network packets are also covered. Download: Pozhitkov-260.zip
The Consummate Engineer 50 George Novacek	Microelectronic Component Obsolescence How to Prepare for an Inevitable Scarcity of Parts Component obsolescence is a possible problem for which every microelectronics engineer must plan. Two of the most effective forms of preparedness are designing circuits with high tolerance margins and maintaining a preferred parts list.
Embedded Unveiled 54 Richard Wotiz	Infrared Thermal Detectors Thermal sensing technology has come a long way since the first radiation thermometer was developed in the early 19th century. Review this survey of thermal sensing technologies -- from thermopile sensors to pyroelectric detectors -- before starting your next temperature-sensing design.
Lessons from the Trenches 60 George Martin	Printer Port Connections You've been asked to upgrade an old industrial control system that uses a printer port as a high-speed parallel I/O link to custom electronics contained in an operator's console. But the printer port is dead, right? This article details a few design plans for bridging the gap between old and new technology to meet your project's contemporary requirements.
From the Bench 64 Jeff Bachiochi	Wheel-Free Mobile Robots Want to look under the hood of a mobile mechatronics robot? This article covers everything from the interactive programming environment to the robot's hardware design. Download: Bachiochi-260.ZIP
74	Crossword Puzzle
78	Crossword Puzzle - Answers for Issue 259
79	Advertiser's Index / April Preview
80 Steve Ciarcia	HTML Priority Interrupt A Rose by Any Other Name...

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