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Found a Microcontroller, not sure how to program it

Engineer

Dec 24, 2009
2
Joined
Dec 24, 2009
Messages
2
Hey guys, I found a microcontroller, I was just wondering, how do I go about programming it. I recently built a programmer with an icsp port, but I have no controller now so I figured I'd grab one from some appliance to start playing around with programming.

The microcontroller I found was located inside a CD Clock Radio, its one of those "chip on board" things on a pcb which is then soldered onto another pcb. It has 40 connections, no pins since its just soldered directly on top of the board. The spacing between the connections is much less so this thing is much smaller than the average 40 pin microcontroller. The connections go out to the LCD and to a crystal and some other components thats how I figured it would be a microcontroller. Now how do I know what connections go to what on my programmer to start programming?
 

tron-ee

Sep 11, 2009
12
Joined
Sep 11, 2009
Messages
12
Hey guys, I found a microcontroller, I was just wondering, how do I go about programming it. I recently built a programmer with an icsp port, but I have no controller now so I figured I'd grab one from some appliance to start playing around with programming.

The microcontroller I found was located inside a CD Clock Radio, its one of those "chip on board" things on a pcb which is then soldered onto another pcb. It has 40 connections, no pins since its just soldered directly on top of the board. The spacing between the connections is much less so this thing is much smaller than the average 40 pin microcontroller. The connections go out to the LCD and to a crystal and some other components thats how I figured it would be a microcontroller. Now how do I know what connections go to what on my programmer to start programming?

You are doing things the hard way.

1st select the type of microcontroller you desire to know about,
- Atmel http://www.atmel.com
- MicroChip http://www.microchip.com

are two really good ways to learn microcontroller programming. If you choose Atmel,
I'd look into Arduino, there are lots of really kewl hobbyiest oriented stuff one can do and on the cheap too. One of the really kewl projects is a four-propeller electric motor UAV platform. ~$150 or a $20 MIDI controller or a 16 channel RGB LED color-organ, etc.

MicroChip is just as good and they have a huge assortment of really fine and inexpensive capable microcontrollers. Also, one can buy third-party 'clone' (Olimex is good one) and (SparkFun is an excellent source) ICD-II programmer/in-circuit-debugger tool for around
$30~50. There are literally tens of thousands of MicroChip projects listed on the InterNet. I've been collecting them for over 20 years now in preparation for hobbyiest project book I am writing. These gadgets are so neato.

Stick with KNOWN parts to learn, that way you can download the user-manuals and programming information for the microcontrollers. Reverse-engineering a no-name/no-part-no chip is a very advanced process, total waste of time for a newbie and when you are done, you know nothing but frustration (and how dumb one's thinking might actually be, heh heh).

The Atmel & MicroChip microcontroller parts start at around $1.00 ea and up, depending upon where, who and what you buy.

Good luck & remember to have fun.

tron-ee
 
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