Start • Typical MCU Tasks • Microcontroller Mode • Watch This! • Put the GP-22050 to Work • Closing the Lid • Sources and PDF

I’m just sitting here looking at my desk. What a mess. Let’s see. There’s a pair of ZigBee boards stacked on top of an early ENC28J60 prototype that are stacked on top of various CompactFlash 802.11b radio cards, parts samples, programming tools, and batteries.  My trusty HP-16C calculator must be somewhere under all of this microcontroller confusion. I don’t see it out in the open in its usual place on top of that stack of datasheets that are covering the rest of my desk.

As I survey the electronic wasteland that is my desk, all of my little brainchild electronic devices have one thing in common: they’re all based on someone’s microcontroller. I’ll bet that I’ve put as much code into the gaggle of microcontroller-based devices on my desk as I have put lead into targets at Steve Kennedy’s Merritt Island gun site. 

Success at the shooting range always requires a gun, a steady hand, and ammunition. However, I’m about to show you that success with microcontroller designs doesn’t always require a microcontroller, a soldering iron, or a compiler.