[sdiy] My first big project

[David Brännvall]

> > I could use this 74HC138 thingy to get lots of buttons on a few pins to!
> be carefull, its not a proper mux/demux, it only gives 3to8 line decoder,
> here is no 'through' like the 4067 (4to16 line demux)

Great, I will look through the swedish catalog Elfa, to see what else useful there is out there that I might need.


> > Same thing for leds, with some extra d-latch or something, I think I will
> > work that out.
> 
> Yep, for LEDs its good..

I have been considering that shiftregister thingy to. Lots of experimantation to be done.


> > DAs are available on the AVRs or PICs (this has the lowest proprity right
> > now).
> 
> none of the AVRs have DACs,
> but you can get some very nice serial ones from analog devices and Maxim.

I did some reading over at AVRfreaks last night, so I noticed this! I also found some stuff about using the ADCs as DACs.


> > Midi is simple serial communication.
> 
> yes, simple, but with a few twists...

Yepp, I found your article about midi usefull and interesting. The stuff about running status etc was really good.


> So you're heading for one of the high end AVRs then, if you want two uarts.

Yupp, atleast to laborate with, because I want some headroom.


> STK500 is a good development kit... as it takes most of the AVR range, if
> you want to go for for the Mega128 there is an adapter for the STK500
> (stk501 is the adapter)

I think I will order this devkit when I get my paycheck. :)


> > And when I get stuck, kindly ask you nice people for help.
> 
> sure go for it..

Thank you. It looks like the project budget is running wild, but I am sure it is worth it. 

regards,
David