Brain Cortex Part 5 - Modules

Looking through the transparent jar, the beginning of the intelligent Brain Cortex life form is taking shape. Seen is the Propeller brain circuit prototyped on a solderless breadboard with a speaker and LED for testing. At top right is a 3 volt 120 mA solar panel that charges the batteries and possibly a super super cap energy system. At bottom is a package of desiccant silica gel to prevent moisture from forming in the jar. In the circuit, to compensate for the wide range of fluctuation voltages (over time), the Propeller chip's BOE (Brown Out Enable) must be disabled. Not shown, batteries, super super capacitor and solar panel switching circuits.

BRAIN CORTEX MODULES
PART 5

The LIVING Brain Cortex is now congealing together in the form of modules, which includes the cortex board, solar collector, desiccator system, battery supply, and a super super capacitor by design. The cortex board includes crystal regulation, long term EEPROM memory, a USB interface (Prop Plug), LED and speaker. The latter two are for preliminary testing.


— the brain cortex is a living machine based on the Parallax Propeller chip, designed to think, converse, learn, remember, and ask questions. With maintenance, the cortex could outlive humans —

The modules are being arranged as some will set on the home jar floor, and some will attach to jar walls. The cortex board could attach behind the jar label with the solar panel on the opposite wall. The battery supply will attach on the jar floor due to its weight and the desiccator will set somewhere in between. Modules will mount on precut sections of green transparent board using spaces which in turn will mount on various sections of the internal sides of the jar.

BATTERY UPDATE
The 1.5 volt AA battery has been replaced with a more energy efficient 1.5 volt D size. Two of these will provide 3 volts to the Propeller chip.

BASIC Stamp Compare

BASIC STAMP COMPARE
We used the Parallax old discontinued web site with its BASIC Stamp module comparison generator to create the view below. It shows specifications for the variety of BASIC Stamps currently available and is a valuable reference for creating Stamp projects.

Credit: Parallax
http://classic.parallax.com/BASICStampComparison/tabid/436/Default.aspx
Not shown: Spin Stamp, Javelin Stamp 

Basic Stamp Discovery

STAMP DISCOVERY MAKES WAY FOR NEW SUPERMACHINES
GIANT BASIC STAMP DISCOVERY
While organizing space after several times of moving from lab to lab and home to home, some hidden dusty boxes were discovered way up inside the dark poorly illuminated back country of elevated storage land. When opened, the boxes held the greatest treasures of dozens of BASIC Stamps, chips, modules, boards, and parts! This opens the pathway for the construction of new Stamp supermachines.

— Halloween special true story —

These treasured boxed caches of Stamp modules and parts were collected over the past ten years, and were located up in the tiny dark elevated loft, a place where no human dare go, especially in the month of October, when spirits, goblins, ghosts, vampires, and unmentionable creepy crawlies make their appearances...

It's the place where there's no space to stand up. On your hands and knees, you crawl around with other things that also crawl. They seek the warmth of your pants, and once they get inside, they love to bite.

If you're brave enough to temporary withstand the horrendous heat and fling your face into the dimly illuminated dusty dark creepy crawly realm, or suddenly encounter a sticky spider cobweb of immense proportions flapped abrubtly into your face along with its large ugly black furry resident inhabitant, or endure any scarey small spaces closing in on you creating confining claustrophobic tendencies, this is surely the place to go, explore and realize the full peak of your greatest fears!

Treasure hunters are often brave souls, willing to temporarily endure such challenges, with the thought of treasured discovery in mind. Suddenly, a treasure cache of boxes was discovered, filled with dozens of BASIC Stamps, modules, chips, boards, kits, and parts, enough to design and build the next generation massive and powerful Stamp supermachine! The cache discovered will undoubtedly lead to greater, larger, and considerably more powerful BASIC Stamp supermachines!

Propeller Nano Pulsar

GMM Microscope image of a Nano Pulsar

PROPELLER CHIP NANO PULSAR
NANO Technology is here for the Propeller chip! Take a look at this Nano Pulsar created from Propeller SPIN code that operates inside a single Parallax Propeller chip!

This Nano Pulsar is a mere 10-ns to one side and represents the fastest machine inside the chip, currently known in the Propeller world!

Propeller aficionados may be aware of some techniques provided by Parallax to enable the programming of registers belonging to a configurable state machine. There are 32 different modes that program the most spectacular machines. There are two counter modules per Cog with eight Cogs to a single chip for a total of sixteen powerful state machines. The Brain has taken just one Propeller Counter Module and configured it to a powerful Nanotechnology 10-ns Machine.

{
      ************************************************************************
      ************************************************************************
      ***                                                                  ***
      ***                     Propeller Nano Pulsar 2                      ***
      ***                        Nano Result at Pin                        ***
      ***                        prop_pulsar2.spin                         ***
      ***                                                                  ***
      ***                                                                  ***
      ***                             V01.0                                ***
      ***                           Humanoido                              ***
      ***                                                                  ***
      ***                                                                  ***  
      ************************************************************************
}
CON
                 ' Declare constants, Feedback/PLL multiplier  
   _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x 
                 ' External oscillator 6.25 MHz Crystal for 100MHz
   _xinfreq = 6_250_000     
                 ' 200MIPs, 25MIPs/Cog PUB Toggle3(Pin)
                 'Use cog's counter module, toggle at clock speed
dira[Pin]~~      'Set I/O pin to output
                 ' mode PLL BPIN APIN
ctra := 100_000 << 23 + 1 << 9 + Pin
                 'Establish mode and APIN (BPIN ignored)
                 'Set FRQA so PHSA[31] toggles every clock
frqa := $8000_0000
repeat           'infinity loop