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An eight pin Microchip PIC microcontroller is programmed to operate from a 32768 Hz watch crystal and output waveforms which, when displayed on an oscilloscope, show the time in HH:MM:SS format. The screen capture shows winscope showing 12:46: ...
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Signing UpStep 1Design the character set
On an oscilloscope screen, vertical axis (up and down) corresponds to the magnitude of the voltage and horizontal axis (across) corresponds to time.
Letters and numbers are made visible by assigning a voltage to each dot, vertically, and using time to scan across it. If a dot is to be made visible, a particular voltage is output during its time slot. If the dot is invisible, a blanking voltage is output during that time instead.
Since we are using a programmable microcontroller, the characters to be displayed will be held as dot patterns in its program memory. We thus have the freedom to design the character set for the clock. I have used a 7x5 matrix font, and used graph paper to design the characters.
It is simple. Just grab a pen and mark inside the squares of the 7x5 area, and try to make the result look like letters and numbers.
Get lots of paper, so that you can throw away your mistakes and start all over again.
Or, you can download the data sheet of some LCD controller ic and it will have all those character maps listed inside. Copy away, and no one will ever suspect that this work is not your own.
Letters and numbers are made visible by assigning a voltage to each dot, vertically, and using time to scan across it. If a dot is to be made visible, a particular voltage is output during its time slot. If the dot is invisible, a blanking voltage is output during that time instead.
Since we are using a programmable microcontroller, the characters to be displayed will be held as dot patterns in its program memory. We thus have the freedom to design the character set for the clock. I have used a 7x5 matrix font, and used graph paper to design the characters.
It is simple. Just grab a pen and mark inside the squares of the 7x5 area, and try to make the result look like letters and numbers.
Get lots of paper, so that you can throw away your mistakes and start all over again.
Or, you can download the data sheet of some LCD controller ic and it will have all those character maps listed inside. Copy away, and no one will ever suspect that this work is not your own.
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i will try it!!
Regards!
does this work when i conect it to my scope?
if the anser is yes will it be the same as the pc picture cus i dont likt that
It will be as clear as a "dotted font" displayed on the computer screen.
cus i dont have any experience in that
do i need a device to do that?
You say that like it's a bad thing. Projects like this can teach you more about your chosen technology (in this case, microcontrollers and o-scopes) than any number of "practical projects". Any comp-sci or electrical engineering student should be familiar with using lots of highly complex hardware to create a clock or work out the first hundred primes or something.
I, for one, would like to see a brief description of the algorithm used in your main program, but feel free to ignore me as lone-voice-of-person-who-likes-assembler.
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