Backcountry Business
Since a few people asked, I’ve posted the source code for the Backcountry Logger. In a first for me, the source is offered with a specific license. In this case, it’s the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. I feel a bit…
Tiny CPU Update
Slow progress continues on the assembly and first boot-up of Tiny CPU. The photo shows a sample program written in Tiny CPU assembly language, drawing a color pattern on the LCD. The serial port and keyboard interface haven’t yet been…
Backcountry Logger Bill of Materials
The first Backcountry Logger prototype has gotten a very positive response from everyone I’ve showed it too, so I’m toying with the idea of making a few and selling them. I put together a bill of materials to estimate the…
JTAG, EXTEST, and hair loss
Oof. See that window to the left? That’s the result of 10 hours of debugging effort on bring-up for my custom Tiny CPU board. What you see is UrJTAG connected to the JTAG interface of the Max II CPLD, and successfully…
Soldering, with Profanity
Hot diggety damn! I believe I’ve successfully soldered the Max II in its cruel 100-pin package with 0.5 mm pin spacing. At least, I’ve assembled enough of the board to connect it to a JTAG programmer, program an LED blinky…
Tiny CPU Boards
The Tiny CPU boards arrived yesterday from Seeed Studio’s Fusion PCB service. Now it’s time to break out my soldering iron again, and get busy with that 0.5 mm pitch 100-pin TQFP. Ugh! I placed the order with Seeed on…
Backcountry Logger v1 Demo
The Backcountry Logger is a portable microcontroller-driven device that collects temperature, air pressure, and altitude data, and shows graphs on a built-in screen. It’s intended for hikers, climbers, skiers, and other outdoorsy folks who want to geek out with environmenal…
Backcountry Logger v1 PCB
Hooray, the v1 Backcountry Logger boards have arrived from the PCB manufacturer! This time I used Dorkbot PDX, and the elapsed time from the ordering cutoff date to board delivery was only 12 calendar days. For $5 per square inch, with…
Shrinking the Backcountry Logger
Shrinking a design as far as possible can be an addictive hobby. Even though PCBs for the first backcountry logger design aren’t yet back from the board house, I’ve been busy working on a revised version that’s just 1.9 x 1.1…
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