An Introduction to Microcontrollers, Part II

KZ1G continues his tutorial on the basics of programming and using the microcontrollers (MCUs) that are becoming ever-more-common in ham radio projects.

Jonathan Titus, KZ1G

The previous microcontroller article1 explained how software can control digital outputs that turn LEDs — and other devices — on or off. The DIRA command set MCU pins as either inputs or outputs, and the OUTA command transferred a logic-1 or a logic-0 to identified output pins. You also learned about objects that perform operations independent of your code, and you used an object in the Timing.spin code to create a 1-second delay (see Table 1). That program also defined a byte (8-bit) variable, LEDCounter, that has 1 added to it each time through the repeat loop. Thus the value of LEDCounter can range from 000000002 to 111111112, or 0 to 255. You might have wondered what happens when a pass through the loop adds 1 to 255. The LEDCounter…

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CQ Amateur Radio (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2015

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