A couple of things 43s related

[MarkHaysHarris777]

hi everyone, the trick is to collaborate with the Arduino team in Italy; what is needed is a low power open hardware development platform (Arduino Uno-Lp) for coin cell operated applications. Letter going out tomorrow.

On another note: my idea for the calculator is based in networking, and multi-core processing. Well, in an Arduino world that means building a 'Trinity' comprised of the Uno, a Mega2560, and a Due. You can compare their specifications to see where I'm going with this. Ideally, the three should be mounted on the same board with one set of IO pins like the Due or the Mega2560. My prototype will be laying out on the work-bench of course.

Here is the idea: three Arduinos working in parallel; all three are networked (serial, parallel) and all work together for one common purpose (calculation and interface with the read world, calculator lab) but each of the units has its own personality and primary job function... one provides keyboard scanning, process control and interprocess communication, the second provides for real-world IO and data management (including register database), and the third provides display I/O (which for my prototype will consist of two(2) 16x2 backlit LCD (blue).

All three machines, of course, can calculate. The real power comes from parallel processing and process specialization. Registers for all purposes (matrix, complex, even reals) will reside in a database (write|read) managed by one Arduino controller communicated (serial|parallel) to the others on demand. Each unit will have its own local storage or course, but memory management for the machine will be the responsibility of one unit.

Others have made rudimentary calculators from Arduino; but they have the problem that they try to do the job with just one unit... and we need more I/O lines for that. The Mega2560 could handle it, and the Due even better (faster Arm processor, 64 Mhz) but if three units are working together the ONLY downside is Barry's point--- power consumption. Well, that's where the Arduino team in Italy get involved; they're gonna produce a three processor prototyping platform for coin cell operation (obviously all CMOS, and obviously very tiny), I hope... guess I shouldn't be too presumptuous.

Well that's all for now. I'm getting pumped about this... and me and my Arduino Uno (working with two of them now) are having a new love affair.

Cheers,
marcus