x box 1979

this post is about the little micro-controller project v did , last sem

it was a usual evening in bits, not much happening , me on the net checking my inbox,
then tapan(IITB) called saying that the iitb techfest site is up. so i thought might as well check it out . so there i was scrolling through the various events , there were radio, cro , cars, planes, rockets, ships...its was like iitb was trying to triump over all three modes of transport .
the event called CRO 2.0 particularly caught my attention, i came out of room and told the idea to neeraj p.but he said it was tough since it involved uP and all ( v were in 2.1 then). i tried to argue for a while but then i gave up.
after a while parsani and sharan were chatting in our corridor , so i also joined in, since its the favorite past time in bits ( gappa-marna).i told them how CRO 2.0 involved making a game on the CRO using micro-controller/processor. by now i was convinced that the thing was 2 big for me to do .
but these guys, their faces lit up at the idea of the event. so v decided that v will go for it uncertain of how far v will be able to make it . (july 2006). when v started v only valued the xperience v would gain ffrm it rather the certificate.

next thing was to get resources ;
a game
a uP
a guide (info)

i nick named all 3 of us => alpha for agrawal, bravo for parsani and charlie for chetlur
(sharan)

the game

this part took a whole lot of research and loads of surfing and head banging against my desktop,
out of 2-3 games v narrowed it down to one final game(the game has something to do with boxes).The games was continuously modified throughout the course of the project to meet the need of the display and the complexity .

as far the micro-controller is concerned , rohit desa helped us a lot. since v had no idea on using uP's , he helped us patiently in getting started with PIC16F876A.v started with simple things like blinking leds and stuff

then the guide . v opened the bits-goa site and looked for the teacher with uP xperience ,
only one named poped up was of AA. so v asked her for her guidance and she was more than willing to help.

so v got started...
v took desa's programmer and went to the lab , for the first 2 weeks v were not able to program our chip, since time for running out v bought our own programmer frm( www.sunrom.com)
@Rs.3000/-. i know it sounds xpensive, but its totally worth it .

as the end of 2.1( 2nd yr, sem 1) approched v were stuck , v were not able to get even simples boxes on the CRO . i was panicking a bit , but alpha and charlie kept their cool and kept working on the code and i tried to shuffle the hardware(btw i was the hardware guy and Bravo and Charlie did all the coding)

on the last day of compree of 2.1 v got a box on the screen , v jumped with joy , or to put in alpha's words -" it was better than sex".

once the boxes were up , things were easy , frm 1 box v moved on to 15 boxes and frm there to blinking text and menus and stuff.

i could elaborate more . but the adventure kept building .