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Category Archives: Microcontrollers

Wavetable Synthesis

One of my favorite classes in college was a micro-controller course where we had to build an alarm-clock radio.  For extra credit, I wrote a very simple “music” module to allow students to write songs to use as alarms (instead of a boring tone or siren.)  At the time I wondered if there was a way to play real midis or multiple frequencies at once to make more advanced songs.  Sadly, I was a busy student and didn’t have time to look into it.

Now, far too late for class, I’ve come across a project using wavetable synthesis which would have been an excellent jump point for me to implement a more advanced music module.  I’ll have to play around with this concept and see if I can’t slip a new module to my old professor.

 

 
 

Interfacing uC with Windows apps over USB

Many microcontrollers have integrated USB meaning you have the ability to hook them up to a PC and interface with them. This is something I’ve had to do before which took me more effort than I would have liked. Here is a great little example page on how to go about doing it a better way.

 

VGA Generation with Atmega644p

I’ve always wanted to try out video with a microcontroller, and this a great example project.  It will display a flicker free 256×240 256 color image stored in SRAM.  It seems like it would be a small step to take this from a static display to moving images.

 
 

Programming Arduino using Audio

This is a cool project which sets up your Arduino to accept programming via a mono headphone plug.  This could be very useful for a simple interface to add new data to an existing project or possibly even do a complete reprogramming with no more than a headphone jack on a PC and some simple software.

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2011 in Arduino, Arduino, Microcontrollers, Microcontrollers