For the control matrix of my computer I am using some NVRAM chips to store a 16-bit control word for the various registers and control wires of my CPU. I decided not to use EEPROM as the chips that I bought were all faulty and wouldn’t write (I consulted many people and they agreed). I also decided that moving breadboard wires around was an extremely inefficient way to program 70 control words at 70 addresses. Which is why I decided to create a simple NVRAM (or EEPROM) programmer using the Arduino to send out addresses and data as well as control the write enable pin. My sketch cycles through bytes of data in an array of a specified length. My code is available for anyone who would find it useful, it can be modified quite easily for your programming needs.
The aptly-named 8 Bit Spaghetti blog chronicles a TTL logic journey encompassing many breadboards. The Arduino-powered NVRAM programmer is handy and uses an Adafruit Protoshield!
Make a robot friend with Adafruit’s CRICKIT – A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It’s an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express, FEATHER and other platforms to make and program robots with CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. Start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends your boards so you can still use all the goodies on the microcontroller, now you have a robotics playground as well.
