Generic Calculator Shield for Arduino Photo-journal

[MarkHaysHarris777]

I am playing around with the Arduino micro-controller; planning on prototyping on the Uno, MEGA2560, Due, and the Intel Edison with the Arduino breakouts. My MEGA2560 came today by mail; as well I built my parallel binary display module | debugger. So, the pics, then some comments:



The MEGA2560 is a faster micro-controller, has more memory, and way more pinouts (digital and analog). This guy is fun; the big brother of Uno. The new IDE works splendidly with this board. I built the parallel binary display board today (serial is coming tomorrow) using a bar LED driven with 74LS04 inverter package, powered on-board with a 7805 fed from the Arduino Vin. This setup is a binary calculator (RPN) four level stack with one function (+), and [enter] button, and a compliment button for subtraction. Its six digit binary, but gets the framework going; as well, provides me with some instrumentation (you know I am big on instrumentation toys)!

I'm planning to read the keyboard with four lines, and to talk with the LCD with three lines; however, the Due and the Mega (the Edison too) give the opportunity for plenty of I|O lines should that be faster or (just better) to do things in parallel rather than serial. Time will tell.

Cheers,
marcus