Well, it’s been a long time — not sure what’s been going on, but something must have happened since the last post… … ?
Anyway, I’ve been idly thinking about getting back into doing things with electronics, and this finally got triggered into action after a visit to Leeds Modular Meet on August 15th. I’d been playing with a Microchip PIC32 (a fairly powerful little processor), but also became intrigued at the other end of the spectrum by the ATTINY85, an 8-pin, 8-bit micro which nonetheless offers some interesting possibilities; and sometimes limitations are the things which bring out the most creative solutions…
Since there was going to be software involved, I thought I’d also try and get my head around using git, and follow the current trend of making projects available to all (at least at this early stage). Therefore I created a repo on github and installed Sourcetree on my computer (I’ve become too used to using GUI-based tools for source-control, so forgive me for not going all hair-shirt on git).
My basic idea is to create a sound-generating device which would be capable of making interesting drones and textures with a few controls (Ash and I have been considering using DiY devices for our Orlando Ferguson project, so this would be an ideal fit. However I need to get some fundamentals straight first, as well as remembering/relearning the digital audio basics I learned in through the ’90s.
The first step of course was to get acquainted with the device. I have an Arduino Uno, so I configured that as a programmer for the ATTINY and began using the Arduino IDE for playing with the code.
I configured a breadboard such that the connections to the programmer were at one end of the board, with ‘prototyping’ areas elsewhere (that way I wasn’t continually (dis)connecting wires, but rather just shifting the ATTINY from one board location to another.
Anyway, that’s the intro written — more to come (hopefully soon).