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Joined: 31/07/2019
Location: AustraliaPosts: 655
| Posted: 06:08am 09 Feb 2024 |
Well I have made progress on my programmable calculator project.
It runs on the Silicon Chip Pico backpack kit. Programs can be run from SD card or a connected PC using a serial terminal. The SD card can be read and written from within programs.
At startup a simple screen is displayed with numeric and program buttons.
The three program buttons load associated programs on the SD card, I have imaginatively titled them "Program1" ,..2, Calc.
The Calc program is very small and just reads and evaluates a math line input by the operator.
The next program is a trivial example that reads a temperature value, does a little math and presents the result (Celsius). The input is stored/used using a simple variable as usual in programming.
(ed) That is basically the intended main use - a program runs using small amount of user numeric input, and presents the result. More significant math would be run by a stored program, so the key pad is mainly intended for some numeric input. A lot more functions are available via the program.
The arduino environment means things can be added easily, eg per I2C, so I added a 3231 RTC and the time is available as variables in the program. The next photo shows a program that uses the RTC value to calculate the suns position. It is in a loop so it updates once a second. It also reads the SD card for parameters.
I hope to add things like a DA converter and so on. The interpreter already has AD and port bit commands so it should be straightforward.
Now for the de-bugging....
.(arrrgh!)The Pico has some issues and the backpack has limits as well so I am looking at other platforms as well. They are pretty similar though I guess.
Edited 2024-02-09 16:24 by zeitfest