Brads Electronic Projects Forum

I got this idea when observing my unused v-tech laptop from when I was a kid. So I opened it up, and found that it had a 5x8 lcd and ran on a custom made (meaning only v-tech made it) v-tech microcontroller. So I decided that I would create a microcontroller laptop that actually did something useful. I am in need of help, though. I cant seem to find a microcontroller (within my penny budget :p) that would support a large one-color lcd or multi color lcd and a usb mass storage device. Does anyone know of one? Is the usb support even possible? If it is possible, how would I go about doing it?

What you need is some sort of pic 18f microcontroller!

plenty of power for what you are looking to do, you get usb support, loads of program memory with the ability to connect up an sd card, there are plenty of Input output pins to drive your keyboard and lcd etc...

what you should do is register to microchip and get free samples, even the shipping is free!

Sounds like a fantastic project by the way!

I would look at the pic18f4685 microcontroller, all the features you need and more

http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/De ... e=en026324

I saw this today and thought of you:

The Maximite
http://members.iinet.net.au/~geoffg/maximite.html

The design is free and open source including the software and BASIC interpreter. And all this is powered by a single chip which costs just US$8.44.

I like projects like this so I hope to watch individuals who are interested in stuff like this.

This guy certainly knows what he's doing!

I had a read through and it looks like he lives in my home city Perth, Australia! (Altronics is an electronics store in Perth)

After looking at the maximite website a lot, I was inspired to create something like it. I will be using a pic32 microcontroller with a 100 pin count, giving me a lot to work with. It will be portable and most likely running off of a 9-volt battery (unless I can find a better power source) and I will be using a Nokia screen I found for cheep on eBay. I was going to have a WiFi chip, until I noticed they were $30 each but it will have many other useful features that I will name later. I will be working on this with two friends, one of which knows C, C++, Basic, and countless other useful programming languages.

Just wondering, Is there a specific reason that you're using such a powerful chip? An 18f would certainly be able to take care of the job. (they're my favorite!)

Any insight into some features that you will be incorporating into the laptop? I'm quite interested to see the progress of this project.

brad wrote:Just wondering, Is there a specific reason that you're using such a powerful chip? An 18f would certainly be able to take care of the job. (they're my favorite!)

Any insight into some features that you will be incorporating into the laptop? I'm quite interested to see the progress of this project.

There isn't any specific reason for using a pic32, I just noticed that the prices were about the same, so why not go for the more powerful one? My friends and I were talking about price, and we did some very rough estimates and got about $50 total. Some others features we talked about were a mini built in keyboard (with an IBM input for a larger one if we wanted to type a lot of code), a smaller screen (less power consumption and more portability), 1 or 2 USB ports with FAT support, an SD card slot for additional memory, two video outputs (VGA and composite video), and an Ethernet port. I will be meeting with my friends on Monday to talk about other features and designing an enclosure, a PCB, and software. By the way, I am using the pic32MX795F512L

I am very keen to see how this project comes along.

The good thing is with most of the options that you want to add, is that they can pretty much interface directly with the microcontroller with out any extra circuitry needed.

If you are using SD cards - you may want to look at buying the LF series of pics because they can run on 3.3Volts (which is what the sd cards run on)

I am not 100% sure if the 32bit pics have an LF series. Otherwise you just need two seperate regulators - 5v for the pic, 3.3v for the SD card and then some interface circuitry to match the higher logic of the pic to the lower logic of the sd card.

Here is a video of a game system someone made with an LCD display that I thought you may be interested in:

There is a development board on Sparkfun which may or may not help you.

USB 32-Bit Whacker - PIC32MX795 Development Board
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9713

Unfortunately, I have put this project on hold for now, I am not experienced enough to just jump into something as complicated as this. I am going to buy a USB prototyping board from microchip.com and mess around with USB interface for a while. After I understand USB better, I will be making a mini portable file transfer device to help me understand data transfer between two USB devices or a USB and sd card. I will post designs and code as I work on it. Again, I have not given up this project, I am just putting it on hold.

That's fair enough. it's all a learning experience and you can certainly work your way up to a project of that size.

Little steps at a time. Perhaps you could look into making your own sort of SD card reader. one 18f pic and an sd card should be all that is required