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1Getting Started
This project is under continuous development. At this time, if you can scavenge the required components, then you can follow along as the project continues to take shape. Eventually, I am planning on having an actual "universal" board made by an outside board manufacturer. So it is always a good idea at this point to use sockets and standardized connectors, for the eventual conversion to the final build.
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2Download the Software
If you look at some of my previous projects, you will find that I have been doing quite a bit with custom software on the PC side of things, working with Visual Studio. In the GitHub repositories, therefore you will find C/C++ code for serial port interfacing, printing sheet music, creating oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers, etc. There is also a port of the UCSD Pascal compiler that is in the works, which will (hopefully) eventually include some DSP tools for Audio, etc., that will work with Propeller and other microcontrollers, with or without an attached PC.
Thus the software support for the project is "extensive", yet the purpose of the software, therefore, is NOT to provide a finished product, but rather to provide a "framework" that solves many of the "show stopper" problems with microcontroller interfacing that arise when the time comes to create something that "works in the real world" and not just "in the manufacturers' sandbox."
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3Just Build Something
You should be able to figure out this part. This is a modular, multi-platform solution "space" with wide applications.
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4Now make some NOISE!
Working examples will be provided as time goes by. Source code to help develop custom applications for the PC, using Visual Studio for Windows is available on GitHub. Issues currently addressed in the "framework" include writing custom code for COM port interfacing, as well as sample code for developing simple oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, etc. A port of the UCSD Pascal compiler for microcontrollers is also under development. It has reached the point that simple Pascal programs compile, and produce "something that looks like a binary", however a P-code interpreter, or else code generation for another target platform has not yet been implemented. You can of course use the "official" tools for Arduino if you want to work directly on that platform, bypassing the Altair layer, whether in the emulator or on an actual 8080Aor Z80 machine.
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