Circuit Cellar Ink 187
February 2006

Table of Contents

4 Jennifer Huber	HTML Task Manager Become a Better Embedded Programmer
8 John Gorsky	New Product News ScanBooster/PCI JTAG/Boundary Scan controller on PCI bus from Gopel Electronic GmbH QNX Momentics Eclipse-based C/C++ development suite from QNX Software Systems ZX-24 ZBasic microcontroller from Elba Corp.
14 Jack Benjamin Michal Benjamin	Multifunctional Home Control System Do you really want to take on a project like building a home control system? Jack and Michal thought it was worth it to get a customized system that works with their lifestyle. It controls their alarms, shades, utilities, and more. Wait until you learn about what they're planning next. Download: Benjamin_187.zip
Applied PCs 22 Fred Eady	Discover True 16-Bit Functionality Explorer 16 Offers Welcome Flexibility With Microchip Technology's Explorer 16 development board, you now have true 16-bit mode functionality. Fred takes you inside. The inexpensive board features the new PIC24FJ128GA010 microcontroller and dsPIC33F128GP710 digital signal controller PIMs.
Above the Ground Plane 28 Ed Nisley	Sampled Data Bandwidth Filtering In his last article, Ed described the horrors of an unfiltered system. This month he examines what happens with both good and bad filters. Download: Nisley_187.zip
From the Bench 34 Jeff Bachiochi	Power Over Ethernet Primer Sick of dealing with wall warts? Try power over Ethernet (PoE). Many devices (e.g., security cameras) are now PoE-compatible. Jeff shows you how to establish PoE on an Ethernet link between a hub and an endpoint device.
Silicon Update 40 Tom Cantrell	Something Old, Something New Naysayers are eulogizing the dearly beloved 8-bit microcontroller. Once again, Tom says not so fast. A new generation of chips proves there's still a long life ahead for the 8-bit MCU.
44 Colin O'Flynn	Robust Bootloader for FPGAs Colin built his LoonBoard Unified Bootloader (LUB) to program Xilinx FPGAs. The LUB, which takes only 207 words of program memory, can self-calibrate its internal RC oscillator. Download: OFlynn_187.zip
52 Chris Cantrell	Embedded Object-Oriented Programming To be an effective software engineer, you must have the right tools on hand for generating top-notch code. Object-oriented programming is one such tool. Chris explains how to use object-oriented programming to take your embedded designs to the next level. Download: C_Cantrell_187.zip
60 Michael Dvorsky	Rooting Around Integer Square Roots on Small Processors There are numerous ways to compute square roots. Have you ever tried the sum-of-odds method? What about the bisection method? Michael goes over the basics and shows you how to choose algorithms to suit your particular applications. Download: Dvorsky-187.zip
67 Mariano Barron	Output Real Numbers When Mariano first started developing his talking calculator, he used the scanf and printf functions to enter numbers from the keyboard and show the results on the display. But he soon discovered that using the printf function to output real numbers was soaking up a lot of code memory. Implementing the float-to-ASCII (ftoa ) function solved the problem.
73 Tom Napier	Number Crunching On a Budget Custom PIC MCU Solution Trumps PC Your expensive desktop PC isn't always the best solution for all of your number crunching problems. As Tom explains, some computations can be done more economically on a $4 custom programmed PIC microcontroller than on a PC. Download: Napier_187.zip
76 Aviad Bechori Shlomo Engelberg Roi Rapoport	Voice Changer Technology Shlomo, Aviad, and Roi built a voice changer for a research project they undertook for an Israeli police unit. Here they explain everything they learned along the way. Download: Bechori_187.zip
80 Chris Coulston Brian Nypaver Jeffrey Rimko	DTMF Decoder Using some serious math and timing-saving design techniques, you can build a PIC18F452 microcontroller-based device that decodes the tones generated by a telephone keypad. Chris, Brian, and Jeffrey describe a system that can decode a touch-tone in 1 s. Download: Coulston_187.zip
93	Crossword Puzzle
94	Advertiser's Index / March Preview
96 Steve Ciarcia	HTML Priority Interrupt 50 Years of Invention

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