Epemag 2000-02

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Copyright © 1999 Wimborne Publishing Ltd and EPE Online, Febuary 1999 - www.epemag.com - XXX
Maxfield & Montrose Interactive Inc
Copyright  2000, Wimborne Publishing Ltd
and Maxfield & Montrose Interactive Inc.,
PO Box 857, Madison, Alabama 35758, USA
All rights reserved.
:$51,1*
The materials and works contained within EPE Online — which are made available
by Wimborne Publishing Ltd and Maxfield & Montrose Interactive Inc — are
copyrighted. You are permitted to download locally these materials and works and to
make one (1) hard copy of such materials and works for your personal use. International
copyright laws, however, prohibit any further copying or reproduction of such materials
and works, or any republication of any kind.
Maxfield & Montrose Interactive Inc and Wimborne Publishing Ltd have used their
best efforts in preparing these materials and works. However, Maxfield & Montrose
Interactive Inc and Wimborne Publishing Ltd make no warranties of any kind, expressed
or implied, with regard to the documentation or data contained herein, and specifically
disclaim, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose. Because of possible variances in the quality and condition of
materials and workmanship used by readers, EPE Online, its publishers and agents
disclaim any responsibility for the safe and proper functioning of reader-constructed
projects based on or from information published in these materials and works.
In no event shall Maxfield & Montrose Interactive Inc or Wimborne Publishing Ltd be
responsible or liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including
but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or any other damages in connection
with or arising out of furnishing, performance, or use of these materials and works.
Copyright © 2000 Wimborne Publishing Ltd and EPE Online, February 2000 - www.epemag.com - 83
PROJECTS AND CIRCUITS
EASY-TYPIST TAPE CONTROLLER - by Andy Flind 88
Soundly helps copy-typists who can’t type!
VOLTAGE MONITOR - by Robert Penfold 95

This month’s Starter Project illuminates your battery’s condition
PIC VIDEO CLEANER - by Mike Delaney 101

Improving video viewing on poorly maintained TVs and VCRs
INGENUITY UNLIMITED - hosted by Alan Winstanley 114

Mini Disc Optical Interface; VCO Generator
FIND IT - DON’T LOSE IT! - by Terry de Vaux-Balbirnie 109

Offering the key to enlightened location finding!
SERIES AND FEATURES

NEW TECHNOLOGY UPDATE - by Ian Poole 116
Latest developments in LED efficiency
TECHNOLOGY TIMELINES - 1 Days of Yore 118

by Alvin Brown & Clive “Max” Maxfield
Who, what, where, and when - the fascinating store of how technology
developed in the past millennium.
INTERFACE - by Robert Penfold 129

12 Bit serial ADC using the AD7896
CIRCUIT SURGERY - by Alan Winstanley 132

Bistable Switches; Noise Source; Opamps - Signal Handling
TEACH-IN 2000 - 4 - Diodes and LEDs by John Becker 137

Essential info for the electronics novice, with breadboard experiments and
interactive computer simulations.
NET WORK - THE INTERNET PAGE surfed by Alan Winstanley 151

Sweet Dreamcasts; Cut the Phone Tariffs; Christmas Litmus
REGULARS AND SERVICES

EDITORIAL 85
NEWS - Barry Fox highlights technology’s leading edge. Plus everyday 153
news from the world of electronics.
READOUT - John Becker addresses general points arising. 157

SHOPTALK - with David Barrington The essential guide to component 162
buying for EPE Online projects.
A HIGH PRICE
Is overcharging restricting UK development of electronic trading? Comments in Alan Winstanley’s Net
Work column this month show just how expensive use of the Internet is in the UK in comparison with the
USA. What is also obvious to us (we maintain Web sites both in the UK and in the USA) is that the cost of
UK web space is far higher than that in the USA. The higher call rates, as discussed in Net Work, may not
seem significant, but what really made Internet use and services take off here in the USA was the
introduction of virtually free access for all.
Anyone who has seen any American TV recently cannot fail to realise just how big Internet use is. In
addition to a number of TV programs aimed at web surfers, buying online and so forth, almost every
advert now carries a URL (in fact many adverts are only advertising Web sites). Whilst there are a few
such adverts in the UK, it is obvious that the UK is way behind what is happening on our side of the pond.
Development in the USA has been so rapid and so all encompassing that the FCC are now taking
steps to ensure that a situation of “haves” and “have-nots” does not arise. Their worry is that those with
web access – the vast majority of the US population in one way or another – will have the power of the
knowledge resource behind them, whilst a poorer section of the community may be starved of such
access and find it harder and harder to stay in touch with today’s modern world, thus restricting the job
opportunities open to this group. The FCC are forcing high tech companies to pay for systems that give
access to all by placing computers into schools and communities that cannot afford them themselves.
We can certainly see a (not-so-distant) future where access to the Web, email, and so forth will be
essential for virtually all businesses and, of course, the ability to use the technology is already essential in
many jobs. The problem with technology is that it moves at an ever increasing pace – just look at how far
we have come from nowhere in the last 100 years or so. It is essential for the UK and other countries
around the world to keep up with electronic trading worldwide.
A HIGH PRICE
Speaking of the last 100 years, his month sees the start of our “Technology Timelines” series of
articles, which review how we arrived where we are today (and where we look like ending up tomorrow).
This first installment commences by considering the state of the art as the world was poised to enter the
th
20 Century.
Copyright © 2000 Wimborne Publishing Ltd and EPE

EPE Online,
Online, February
February 2000
2000 - www.epemag.com
- www.epemag.com - 85
- XXX
EPE ICEBREAKER
Real time PIC In-Circuit Emulator, Programmer, Debugger, and Development System
Icebreaker uses the very latest features of the PIC16F877 range of high performance RISK microcon-
trollers. These advanced chips communicate via a PC serial port and allow code to be programmed, run, and
debugged.
Working in a Windows environment with Microchip’s MPLAB software, programs can be written, loaded
and tested by ‘single stepping’ or running at full speed in their final application board.
In-Circuit Emulation means that as a program is run or stepped through, the I/O ports on the chip respond
immediately – reading and driving any external hardware.
Commands include: Reset; Halt on external pulse; Set single breakpoint; Examine and change registers,
program, and EEPROM; Load program from .HEX file, Single step – with display of Status bits, W register,
Program Counter, and selected ‘Watch window’ registers.
The development board has switches, LEDs, connectors for add-on LCD and 7-segment LED displays, a
socket for a plug top power supply, voltage regulator, 9-pin serial connector, “patch areas”, and space for a
small “breadboard”.
For beginners and advanced users – from simple programs such as those from the EPE PIC Tutorial
(code written for the PIC16F84 or ’C84 also runs on the ’877), to large complicated programs using the many
special features of the PIC chips.
AUTOMATIC TRAIN SIGNAL

This very simple starter project is a two-color (red/green) signal for a model railway. It uses a simple form
of automatic operation, and if you stop the train in front of the signal it automatically switches from “green” to
“red”. When the train is restarted the signal automatically switches to “green” again. To an onlooker it appears
as though the signal is changing color and the train is responding to the change. In reality, the train and the
signal are both responding to changes in the track voltage.
PARKING WARNING SYSTEM

An unusual system which bounces a coded infrared beam off the car in order to detect its position. When
the preset sensed distance has been reached, a buzzer and LEDs are operated to warn the driver it’s time to
stop.
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exploring animation, graphics, math, geometry,
... Ideal for teaching programming concepts to DYDLODEOH RQ WKH
young people of all ages.
FREE CD-ROM (for PCs and Macs) contains (3( 2QOLQH ZHE VLWH
Logo software plus lots of other stuff.
Controlling the Forrest Mims

World With Your PC Engineer's
Connect your MS-DOS/Win- Notebook
dows PC to the real world with This revised edition
this best-selling book! includes hundreds of
Comes with all software useful circuits de-
(executable files plus C, Basic, signed and built by
and Pascal Forrest using com-
monly available inte-
grated circuits and
other components.
Bebop to the Bebop BYTES Back

Boolean Boogie (An Unconventional
(An Unconventional Guide to Computers)
Guide to Electronics)
This in-depth, highly readable, This follow-on to Bebop to the Boolean
up to the minute guide shows Boogie is a multimedia extravaganza of
you how electronic devices information about how computers work.
work and how they're made -- FREE CD ROM contains the
the only electronics book Beboputer Computer Simulator, along
where you can learn about mu- with over 200 megabytes of mega-cool
sical socks and the best time multimedia.
of the day to eat smoked fish!
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Improve keyboard skills, audio/visual presentations, thing played is intelligible, to
and script prompter remove the need for back-
spacing, and it should be possi-
This little project was devised requires a “transcribing ma- ble to control it from a
to speed the task of typing text chine” as used by audio typists. footswitch.
into a computer, though it will The difference between these This is what the Easy-Typist
probably find plenty of other uses. and ordinary tape players is that does. The text is recorded in
It plays recorded speech a few they can be started and stopped short “bursts” of as many words
words at a time, waiting for a almost instantly and can “back- as the typist can reasonably re-
prompt before continuing. This space” to play the last few member, with brief silences of
allows people who cannot type words again, usually with a about a second between bursts.
without looking at the screen or footswitch control. They are ex-
pensive though, and rarely This is much easier to do
keyboard to type rapidly and con- than it sounds and requires very
tinuously since it removes the found outside the office environ-
ment. little practice, certainly far less
need to refer frequently to the than the “training” required by
text being typed, which in the However, an ordinary cheap most voice-recognition software
case of handwriting can be ex- microcassette recorder can be products. It can then be played
tremely tedious. used provided a couple of extra back with the recorder con-
There are, of course, other features are added. It should be nected to this project which
ways to enter text into a com- prevented from stopping in the stops it automatically at each
puter. Printed matter of suitable middle of a word so that every- brief silence, allowing the pre-
quality can be scanned and read
with optical character recognition,
but this assumes that a reason-
ably powerful computer is avail-
able together with the software
and a scanner, and it cannot be
used with handwriting.
Voice recognition software is
now available but this requires
serious computing power and still
has an error rate which many
people find unacceptable. Also, it
is difficult to see how this kind of
software will ever be able to deal
with words which sound the
same, such as “to”, “too” and
“two” in the foreseeable future.
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

The time-honored way to do
the job is to dictate the text into a
tape recorder and play it back Easy-Typist linked to a microcassette, earpiece, and the
whilst typing, but this normally footswitch.
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passes straight through to the earphone, but is moni-
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levels the voltage across an earphone is very small,
typically only a few millivolts. It also allows some con-
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Fig.2. Complete circuit diagram for the voltage of the amplifier’s output waveform exceeds the
Easy-Typist Tape Controller. reference set by the sensitivity control, the comparator
restarts a timer which runs for C3 about half a second to “ground” (0V) to simplify the de-
about half a second to deal with recharge via R4 to the point sign.
the natural gaps found even in where IC2b’s output returns to the Supply decoupling capaci-
continuous speech. high state, giving the “timer” actors are provided, these are C5,
The output from this is com- tion needed to keep running with C6, C9, and C10 . The unusu-
bined with the input from the normal speech. ally large value of C9 is in-
footswitch so that either will op- Combination with the signal tended to absorb the start-up
erate the output, again through from the footswitch is performed surges of the recorder’s motor.
a timer, which in this case oper- by the Schmitt NAND gate IC3a. Output to the recorder is from
ates only when the circuit Taking either of the inputs of this plug PL2, whilst switch S2 is
switches off to ensure a positive gate low causes its output to go provided to switch off the power
turn-off action. The footswitch high. when the unit is not in use.
also has a timer, so that a quick When footswitch S1 is oper-
press always operates the ated it discharges capacitor C4.
recorder for long enough to CONSTRUCTION
The time taken for resistor R7 to
reach the next bit of speech. recharge this capacitor guaran- Construction of this project
Finally, there is an elec- tees around 1 5 seconds running
¬
is straightforward although it
tronic switch to control power to time following switch operation. does call for a fine-tipped sol-
the recorder itself. To avoid the dering iron. All the components
The next two gates, IC3b and are assembled on a piece of
need for modifications to the
IC3c, ensure a positive switch-off 0 1in. matrix stripboard, 14
recorder it is started and ¬
action. When the input from IC3a strips by 33 holes. The topside
stopped by using an external
goes low, the output of IC3b goes component layout and details of
power supply and turning this on
high and the output of IC3c goes breaks required in the underside
and off. Plugging an external
low. This is fed back to the other copper tracks are shown in
supply into these recorders nor-
input of IC3b through capacitor Fig.3.
mally disconnects the internal
C7, ensuring that the “off” state is
batteries, so the Easy-Typist The thirty-eight breaks
maintained for at least the 1 5
¬
supplies power, in this case via should be made first. It’s worth
a transistor. seconds it takes for this capacitor
to charge through resistor R8. checking these carefully with a
strong magnifying glass before
continuing as an almost invisi-
CIRCUIT POWER PLAY ble strip of copper sometimes
DESCRIPTION Finally, IC3d inverts the sig-
remains around the edge of a
The full circuit diagram for break and can be very difficult
nal to give the correct polarity of
the Easy-Typist is shown in to find later.
base drive to transistor TR1,
Fig.2. The input signal from which controls the power to the Following this the 21 links
plug PL1 is returned to the ear- microcassette recorder. Diode D1 should be fitted. These should
phone socket SK1 but is also reduces the voltage slightly as a be followed by the resistors,
connected to the amplifier 4 5V supply with only the drop in-
¬
diode D1, the small capacitors,
opamp, IC1 which has a voltage troduced by TR1 might damage a and transistor TR1. Finally, the
gain of eleven at 650Hz. An recorder intended to operate from sockets for the four ICs should
overall “speech” bandwidth of 3V. In practice a single diode be fitted, followed by the elec-
about 200Hz to 2kHz is set by here gives about the right output trolytic capacitors.
capacitors C1 and C2. voltage. It will be seen that some of
Whenever the amplifier out- The supply for this circuit is the small ceramic capacitors
put exceeds the reference level taken from three “AA” cells giving have their leads bent outwards
set by Sensitivity control VR1, 4 5V. The SI7660 “voltage con-
¬
to accommodate a wider hole
comparator IC2a discharges ca- pitch; where this is necessary
verter” IC4 generates a negative
pacitor C3, causing the output care is needed to avoid break-
supply for the opamp and the
of IC2b to go low. IC2a and ing them. There are seven ex-
comparators, which gives them a
IC2b have open collector out- ternal connection points on the
more suitable working voltage
puts to which load resistors R4 board. The use of solder pins
and also allows the battery nega-
and R6 are connected from the for these is highly recom-
tive to be used as the circuit
positive power supply. It takes mended as they provide more
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Potentiometer 8
VR1 1k rotary carbon, linear 7
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Capacitors 5
C1, C6, C10 100n resin-dipped 4
ceramic (3 off) 3
C2 2n2 resin-dipped ceramic 2
C3, C7 470n resin-dipped 1
ceramic (2 off)
C4 47u radial electrolytic, 10V Fig.3. Easy-Typist stripboard component layout and details
C5 100u radial electrolytic, 10V
C8 10u radial electrolytic, 63V of breaks (38) required in the underside copper tracks.
C9 1000u radial electrolytic, 10V
Semiconductors
D1 1N4001 1A 50V rectifier diode
TR1 ZTX550 pnp silicon transistor
IC1 TL061 opamp
IC2 LM393 dual comparator
IC3 4093B CMOS quad 2-input
NAND Schmitt trigger
IC4 SI7660 voltage converter
Miscellaneous
PL1 3.5mm mono jack plug
PL2 DC power plug (see text)
SK1 3.5mm mono chassis socket
SK2 6.35mm mono chassis socket
S1 footswitch, momentary
press-to-make type
B1 4.5V battery pack (3 x AA
cells in holder).
Stripboard 0.1in matrix, size 14

strips x 33 holes; plastic case, size
118mm x 98mm x 45mm approx;
8-pin DIL socket (3 off); 14-pin DIL Completed unit showing the circuit board and battery holder
socket; control knob; connecting
wire, solder pins, solder, etc.
mounted on the lid.
See also the FIRST TESTS Apart from a brief surge as the
SHOP TALK Page! decoupling capacitors charge,
A useful initial test is to there should be virtually no cur-
power the board without any of rent drain. The reason for this
Approx. Cost
Guidance Only $24 the ICs inserted, preferably from
a current-limited bench supply.
test is to check there are no ma-
jor short-circuits present without
(Excl. footswitch & batts)
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inserted. When powered again

with 4 5V, a 9V supply should
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around 0V (using the battery D? 51B@8?>5
negative as the reference

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(pins 5 and 6) to IC3a will be
high, so IC3 pin 4 should be
low, pin 3 should be high, pin 11 Fig.4. Interwiring from the circuit board to off-board
low and pin 10 high so transistor components. The two plugs, PL1 and PL2, are wired on ex-
TR1 should be off. Shorting the tended leads.
connections for footswitch S1
should reverse all these polari- and if it is not present the output found useful for this test. Re-
ties and cause the output to ap- voltage will rise considerably. member that, when the speech
pear from TR1 collector (c) and stops, it will take around half a
diode D1. The output of IC2b should
be monitored with a meter and second for the output of IC2b to
the recorder should be played at go high. Checking the output of
SPEECH TEST normal volume through the ear- IC2a is not recommended un-
phone. The output of IC2b, at less an instrument with a very
It should now be possible to high input impedance is avail-
pin 7, should be low whilst the
test the stage around IC2 using able.
speech is playing and go high
a recorder with an earphone
when it stops. Some adjustment A signal generator could be
and some recorded speech. At
to Sensitivity control VR1 will used in place of the recorder, of
this stage the recorder can op-
probably be necessary to course. If this is available, it
erate from its internal batteries,
achieve this, although the set- should be set to inject a level of
there is no need to connect it to
ting of this control has not 5mV RMS. (15mV peak-to-
the supply from this project. The
proved to be at all critical. peak) at about 600Hz to 700Hz.
earphone must be connected
A recording of some speech If this works, the output from
though, since most recorders of
this type use a series resistor to with appropriate one-
reduce power to the earphone second silences will be
Completed Easy-Typist showing the

additional pause-switch button
Circuit board component layout and wiring. on top of the case.
transistor TR1 and diode D1 can MISSING LINK A bit of this transition to the low
be checked as operating cor- state was fed back into C3
rectly with the sound input pre- A comment regarding the through the inter-track capaci-
sent and absent. pitfalls of working with strip- tance, pulling it down enough to
board can be made here. cause IC2b to switch on again
BOXING-UP Sharp-eyed readers may spot a and the final result was a slow
With all tests completed link to the right of R6 at the top oscillation.
and correct, the board can be of the board which connects
positive supply to a section of So, the circuit which had
fitted into a case of the user’s
track with a break at either end, functioned perfectly as a bread-
own choice and connected as
but going to nothing else. board “rats-nest” refused to be-
shown in Fig.4. In the prototype,
have as a neatly constructed
the Input plug PL1 is a 3 5mm¬ Originally this link was not stripboard unit! Worse, it
mono jack plug dangling on a present. Neither was the right- worked fine without either IC2 or
short lead, whilst the Earphone hand track break so this section IC3, but not when both were
socket SK1 is a 3 5mm mono
¬ of track was connected to IC3 present, so the immediate as-
chassis socket attached to the pin 2 and, more importantly, IC3 sumption was that there must
case. The power plug PL2 for pin 4. This wouldn’t be a prob- be a short-circuit or a missed
the microcassette recorder is lem since it didn’t connect with break between these two.
one of the miniature DC power anything else, right?
It took around three hours to
plugs used with many items Wrong! The next track figure out the true cause of the
these days, the exact type and down connects to pin 1 and pin malfunction. The cure, of
connection polarity will depend 5 of IC2, and capacitance be- course, was to remove the feed-
on the recorder it is to be used tween stripboard tracks can be back path by disconnecting the
with. astonishingly high. When IC2 unused track section with an
The footswitch was pur- pin 1 turns off, the connection to extra break, and to improve on
chased as an inexpensive it becomes high-impedance, this by tying it to the nearest
ready-to-use item. It came with even though it is connected to supply rail. This is a good ex-
a standard 6 35mm mono jack
¬
ground by the 470n capacitor ample of the type of problem
plug so a socket for this was fit- C3. that can befall the unwary strip-
ted to the case. Although not The scenario, then, went as board user which may be help-
shown, a small pushbutton follows. IC2 output turned off ful to others encountering simi-
switch is fitted to the case and and the voltage across C3 rose lar troubles.
connected in parallel with the slowly as it charged from resis- THE LAST WORD
footswitch socket for applica- tor R4. When it reached ground
tions where operation with this potential, IC2b changed state, To finish, here are a few
is more convenient. causing IC3a output to go low. more possible uses for this little
gadget. It would make an ideal
prompter for use when giving
talks or speeches. It could be
used for audio-visual training, or
by actors learning their lines.
Finally, it might render its
original purpose obsolete by
helping to train the user in
touch-typing!
$ VHOHFWLRQ RI (/(&7521,& &'5206
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia

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PICtutor by John Becker

This CD-ROM, together with the PICtutor development board (as described when
you click on "more info"), will teach you how to use PIC microcontrollers. The
board also acts as a development test bed and programmer for future projects.
Electronic Circuits & Components

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Digital Electronics (Mike Tooley)

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digital electronics up to the operation and architecture of microprocessors
Analog Electronics (Mike Tooley)

This is a complete learning resource for the most difficult branch of electronics.
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text, as well as a SPICE electronic circuit simulator with over
Modular Circuit Design

This "web on a CD"-based educational software package contains essential infor-
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and for hobbyists who want to get to grips with project design..
92/7$*( 021,725 E\ 52%(57 3(1)2/'
Keep an eye on your battery’s condition with this tion of the monitor is a critical
low-cost starter project. factor. There is no point in hav-
+V ing a monitor that draws such a
This simple Voltage Monitor high supply current that battery
device has two light-emitting life is greatly reduced.
diode (LED) indicators that This circuit has a typical
switch on if the monitored sup- Da current consumption of around
ply voltage falls below separate Ra 0 6mA under standby condi-
¬
VOLTAGE
threshold levels. The obvious COMPARATOR tions. This should not greatly
application is in battery oper- Rc
reduce the operating life of
ated equipment where erro- + even a low capacity battery
neous results could be obtained such as a PP3 type. The current
VREF
if the battery potential falls be- consumption increases by about
low a critical level. Rb (1.2V) 4mA per LED when the circuit is
Having twin threshold levels activated.
is very useful, as one can be set 0V
slightly above the critical volt-
age, and it will then give a warn- Fig.1. The basic COMPARATOR
ing if the battery will soon need arrangement for each The Voltage Monitor circuit
replacement. The circuit can voltage is based on the two voltage
also be used with mains pow- comparators in an LM393N IC.
ered equipment to monitor the A voltage comparator is very
DC supply voltage, and it will +V
then give a warning if the supply
voltage drops to an inadequate R1 R4 D1 a R6 D2 a
RED RED
level due to a malfunction. 82k 47k L.E.D. k 62k L.E.D. k
ON THE THRESHOLD
R2 R5 R7 R9
With the specified resistor 1M 2k2 820k 2k2
values the circuit provides
threshold potentials of 10V and C1 3 8 5
+ +
12V, but by altering the values 47µ
IC2a 1 IC2b 7
of four resistors these voltages 2 LM393 6 LM393
are easily changed. They can 4
be set at any potentials from
about 3 5V to 30V, but note that
¬ R3
k
R8
the supply voltage to the moni-
120k IC1 120k
ICL8069
tor circuit must never exceed 36 1.2V a
volts. The mathematics required 0V
to work out the modified circuit Fig.2. Full circuit diagram for the Voltage Monitor. It is essen-
values is extremely simple – tial that an in-line fuseholder, with a 100mA fuse, is included in
more later.
the positive supply input lead if the monitor is to be installed in
For battery monitoring ap- a car, boat, caravan etc.
plications the current consump-
similar to an operational ampli- tector circuits is shown in Fig.1.
fier (opamp). Like an opera- The inverting input (–) of the COMPONENTS
tional amplifier, each compara- comparator is fed with a highly
tor has inverting (–) and non- stable reference potential of Resistors
R1 82k
inverting (+) inputs. If the non- 1 2V, and the non-inverting in-
¬
R2 1M
inverting input is at a higher put (+) is fed from the supply R3, R8 120k (2 off)
voltage than the inverting input lines via a potential divider (Ra/ R4 47k 5% carbon film
the output goes high, and if the Rb). A certain fraction of the R5, R9 2k2 5% carbon film (2 off)
R6 62k
inverting input is at the greater supply voltage is therefore fed R7 820k
voltage the output goes low. to the non-inverting input, and All 0.6W 1% carbon film unless noted
This is again the same as this fraction is controlled by the
Capacitor
for an opamp, but there is a values of resistors Ra and Rb. C1 47u radial electrolytic, 40V
subtle difference in that the out- Suppose that the potential Semiconductors
put stage of a comparator is an divider provides one tenth of the D1, D2 5mm red LED (2 off)
open collector type. In other supply voltage to the non- IC1 ICL8069 voltage reference
words, there is a switching tran- inverting input. With a supply IC2 LM393N dual comparator
sistor at the output that is used potential of 12V or more there Miscellaneous
to control a load of some kind. will be 1 2 volts or more at the
¬
Stripboard, size 0.1 inch pitch,
The load in this case is a LED having 20 holes by 17 strips; 8-pin
non-inverting input, and the out-
DIL socket; multistrand connecting
indicator. put transistor of the comparator wire, solder pins, solder, etc.
The basic scheme of things will be switched off.
used in each of the voltage de- See also the
If the supply voltage falls
SHOP TALK Page!
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Approx. Cost
A
B
C
A
B
C
Guidance Only $8
IC1 TOP VIEW
k D D
E D1 a D2 a E
F +V below 12V, the potential fed to
R
a G G the non-inverting input goes be-

1
H R k k H
6
METAL CAN R
I 4 5 R
I low 1 2V, and the inverting input
¬
R 9
J 2 k R
J is then at the higher voltage. The
K K
7 output transistor of the compara-
N.C. k a L + L
PLASTIC M M tor then switches on and activates
a C1
PACKAGE N R
R
N LED Da. Resistor Rc limits the
O 3 O
8 output current to the required
P P
Q 0V level.
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Q
P
Q
P
CIRCUIT DETAILS
O O The full circuit diagram for
N N
M M
the Voltage Monitor appears in
L L Fig.2. The two comparators,
K K within IC2, share a common volt-
J J
age reference, and this is a sim-
I I
H H ple shunt regulator that has resis-
G G tor R4 as the load resistor and
F F IC1 as the voltage stabilizer.
E E
D D The ICL8069 used in the IC1
C C
position is a highly accurate and
B B
A A stable voltage reference chip, and
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 not a simple Zener diode. It will
operate efficiently at currents as
Fig.3. Stripboard topside component layout and details of low as 50uA, which is important in
breaks required in the copper tracks. this application where low current
consumption is a definite asset. upper arm of the divider. used to detect low threshold
It operates at a current in the The required value is unlikely voltages of around five volts. To
region of 200uA in this circuit. to conveniently match up with a compensate for this, resistors
THRESHOLD preferred value, and this is cer- R5 and R9 should be reduced
tainly the case here. The nearest from 2k2 to 1k.
VOLTAGES preferred value to 630k is 620k, Similarly, at high threshold
The threshold voltage of the which is actually an error of under potentials of around 20V to 30V,
detector based on IC2a is deter- two-percent. In some applications the LED current will become rel-
mined by the values of resistors this margin of error is acceptable, atively high, although it should
R1, R2, and R3. Two resistors and it would then be in order to still be no more than about
in series are used in the upper use a value of 620k for resistors 13mA per LED. Increasing the
arm of the potential divider be- R1 or R6, and a link wire for R2 value of R5 and R9 to 3k9 will
cause this enables the threshold or R7. If an error of two percent is keep the LED current at about
value to be set accurately using not acceptable, a 10k resistor and 5mA.
ordinary preferred values. a 620k component in series give The operating current of IC1
With resistor R3 at 120 kilo- exactly the required resistance of varies enormously over the op-
hms (120k), the threshold volt- 630k. erating voltage range of the cir-
age is equal to one volt per 100 Things will not always work cuit, but with the specified value
kilohms of resistance through out quite this well, and in some of 47k for resistor R4 the oper-
the potential divider. This resis- cases it might be necessary to ating current remains within the
tance is fractionally more than accept a small error even if two acceptable range for the
1200k (1 2 megohms), giving a
¬ resistors are used. However, the ICL8069.
threshold voltage of 12V. error should only be a fraction of
The switching voltage of the one percent, which is insignifi-
cant. CONSTRUCTION
other comparator is controlled
by the values of resistors R6, Construction of the Voltage
R7, and R8. With fractionally Monitor project is extremely
CURRENT AFFAIRS simple indeed, and it should be
more than 1000k (1M) of resis-
tance through the potential di- The LED current and bright- within the capabilities of com-
vider this gives a threshold po- ness will be quite low if the unit is plete beginners. The circuit is
tential of 10V.
It is easy to work out the
resistance values for other
threshold voltages provided re-
sistors R3 and R8 are left at a
value of 120k. Multiplying the
required voltage by one hun-
dred gives the total resistance
through the potential divider in
kilohms. Deducting 120 from
this then gives the total resis-
tance through the upper section
of the divider. In other words,
this gives the required series
resistance through R1 and R2,
or R6 and R7 in the second
voltage detector.
As an example, suppose
that a threshold potential of 7 5V ¬
is required. Multiplying 7 5 by
¬
100 gives a total resistance for

Layout of components on the completed Voltage
the potential divider of 750k.
Deducting 120k from this gives Monitor circuit board.
an answer of 630k through the
built on a piece of stripboard suppliers these days. With the
and the component layout, to- plastic version the flat side of of the monitor circuit and vary
gether with details of the breaks the case should be on the left the voltage around the threshold
required in the underside copper as viewed in Fig.3 (i.e. facing levels. With the supply potential
tracks, are shown in Fig.3. towards resistors R2 and R3). above the threshold levels both
The stripboard measures 20 Ignore the pin marked NC LEDs should remain off, but re-
holes by 17 copper strips, and a (which stands for “no connec- ducing the supply should result
board of this size is trimmed tion”). in the LEDs switching on at the
from one of the standard size appropriate threshold voltages.
pieces using a hacksaw. Strip- ASSEMBLY For highly critical applica-
board is quite brittle, so cut tions the threshold levels can be
carefully along rows of holes To some extent the way in “fine tuned” by tweaking the val-
using a minimum of force. File which the unit is constructed ues of resistors R1 and R6. An
any rough edges to a neat finish and used will depend on the increase in value raises the
and then drill the two 3mm di- precise application. It can be threshold voltage, and a reduc-
ameter mounting holes and built into a small plastic or metal tion in value decreases the
make the five breaks in the cop- box and connected to the main threshold level. Provided one
per strips. equipment via a twin lead. In percent tolerant resistors are
most cases, however, it is more used in the potential dividers
The board is now ready for likely to be incorporated into an-
the components and link-wires the accuracy of the circuit
other project. should be very good though,
to be fitted. With a small board
such as this it is not necessary Either way, the circuit board and for most applications no ad-
to worry too much about the ex- and LEDs can be dealt with in justment to the values should
act order in which the compo- two ways. Either the board can be needed.
nents are fitted, but it is proba- be mounted on the case and In the absence of a suitable
bly best to fit the resistors and hard wired to the LEDs on the power supply the unit can be
link-wires first, followed by the front panel, or the LEDs can be given a rough check using some
single capacitor and the semi- mounted on the circuit board batteries. Use a battery or bat-
conductors. and then fitted into holders on teries in series to provide a sup-
the front panel of the case. ply potential that is somewhat
The four link-wires are quite
short and they can be made us- Due to the small size and higher than the higher threshold
ing some of the wire trimmed weight of the circuit board this level. With 10V and 12V thresh-
from the resistor leadouts. Be second method works well with old voltages for instance, a 15V
careful to fit capacitor C1 with any LED holders of reasonable or 18V battery supply could be
the correct polarity. Use single- quality. If the LEDs are not used. Both LEDs should be
sided solder pins at the two mounted on the circuit board, fit switched off when using this
points where the supply will be single-sided solder pins on the supply potential.
connected to the board. board in place of the LEDs. The Now try a lower battery volt-
pins provide an easy means of age that is slightly less than the
Although it is not a static- making reliable connections to
sensitive component, it is still a lower threshold level. For exam-
the board. ple, a 9V battery could be used
good idea to mount the LM393N
comparator, IC2, on the circuit Make sure the LEDs are with 10V and 12V threshold lev-
board via a holder. There is a connected with the correct po- els. Both LEDs should then
slight complication with IC1, larity. The cathode (k) leadout switch on.
which is produced in both metal of an LED is normally indicated If there is any sign of a mal-
cased and plastic encapsulated by a shorter leadout wire and function, disconnect the supply
versions. The metal cased ver- that side of the case being flat. immediately and recheck the
sion (two pins), as used on the circuit board for errors.
prototype, is shown in Fig.3. TESTING
However, it is actually the IN USE
If a suitable variable voltage
plastic cased version (three
supply is available, connect the Note that it is essential to
pins) that is available from most
output of the supply to the input wire an in-line fuseholder fitted
with a low current fuse (about supply voltage of a mains pow-
100mA) in the positive supply ered project, but this is some-
lead if the unit is used to moni- thing that should not be at-
tor the supply of a car, boat, tempted by those of limited ex-
caravan, etc. Otherwise there is perience.
a risk of a fault causing a very Make sure the monitor is
large current to flow, which connected to the supply with the
could result in a fire. right polarity. The semiconduc-
Experienced constructors tors and C1 could be damaged
should have no difficulty in us- if the supply connections are
ing the unit to monitor the DC reversed.
$ VHOHFWLRQ RI (/(&7521,& %RRNV
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Improve your PICture quality. TV was having a struggle. The

resulting sync pulse waveform,
showing details of the
This project is the result of a Making further inquiries, introduced “interference”, can
visit by the author to a friend’s from another friend who is in the be seen in Fig.1.
home to see a video recorder and TV trade, it transpired that the This simplified diagram
portable TV the friend had problem was caused by shows the difference between a
installed in his son’s bedroom that something called “clean” signal and the
was giving trouble. He was “Macrovision*”, which is a VCR- interference pulses added to
complaining that the picture was to-VCR copy-prevention prevent tape-to-tape copying.
“flickering” and the brightness system. This purposely VCRs use the amplitude of the
varying. introduces interference pulses black level voltage immediately
on the video tape. Not all sets following the Line Sync pulse to
The brightness variation was are disturbed in this way, and it
particularly noticeable when set their AGC level. They also
was suspected that the portable rely on incoming sync pulses on
watching at night with the light was simply over-sensitive.
turned down low. Both of the units the video information, unlike
Searching on the Net, an article TVs which have their own sync
had been obtained from second- was discovered which described
hand shop, and they did not want circuits built in. Because the
these pulses in detail. added pulses are variable both
to know about any problems.
in amplitude and repeat timing
Using a known good tape and the brightness of the picture can
head cleaner etc., the system was MAKING A START
vary and the line and frame
duly checked out. After much “First identify the cause” stability can be affected to a
experimentation it was seemed a good approach. This point where it is almost
discovered that the problem lay entailed using a video sync- unrecognizable.
with the tape – a recently- separator IC, type LM1881 from
purchased “Block Buster’’ – National Semiconductor, to see These interference pulses
because the good tape, along exactly what was happening to
with his home-recorded tapes, all the signal on an
worked fine. You could see that oscilloscope. The
the picture flickered and the LM1881 has
brightness was indeed wavering, been around for
but this did not happen with the a long time and
same movie on the main TV in all the
the lounge. application data
that was needed
VERTICAL SYNC
PULSE
came from
FIRST VIDEO PEAK WHITE
BURST
INFORMATION
National’s web
BLACK
LEVEL
site.
'NORMAL' SYNC PULSES
LINES 10-21 AFTER
VERTICAL SYNC PULSE
Breadboar-
SYNC TIPS
ding revealed
some strange
ADDITIONAL PULSES
THESE VARY IN HEIGHT
goings-on
AND REPEAT FREQUENCY
indeed! It was
Fig.1. Sync pulse showing not surprising
interference details. that the portable PIC Video Cleaner showing input SCART
COMPONENTS
Resistors
R1 680k
R2, R7, R8 75 ohms (3 off)
R3, R4 750 ohms (2 off)
R5, R6, R9 1k (3 off)
All 0.6W 1% metal film
Potentiometer
VR1 2k cermet preset
Capacitors
C1, C2, C3, C7 to C10
DETAIL OF SYNC PULSE AND BURST 100n polyester (7 off)
are added between the end of C4, C5 22p ceramic disk (2 off)
the frame-sync pulse and the C6 6u8 axial electrolytic, 16V
A D E
first video information. They C11 22u axial electrolytic, 16V
C12, C13 1000u radial electrolytic,
repeat at intervals of about two
16V (2 off)
seconds and are themselves in C14, C15 1u tantalum bead (2 off)
sync with the line-sync pulses.
Semiconductors
In this way they do not stop the D1 5mm red LED
average TV from working REC1 1A 25V bridge rectifier
satisfactorily, but prevent B C
IC1 LM1881N video sync separator
copying (despite the fact that IC2 PIC16F83-10P microcontroller
preprogrammed (10MHz version)
Copyright laws allow you to Fig.3. Sync timing of the PIC IC3, IC4 AD810 low-power
make a back-up copy of any used to clean up the output current-feedback video amp
legally purchased tape for your from the video recorder. (A) with disable (2 off)
own use), and in my friend’s IC5 7805 +5V 1A voltage regulator
Enable gating to check for IC6 7905 -5V 1A voltage regulator
case sometimes interfere with a
sensitive TV. falling edge of line
Miscellaneous
(horizontal) sync pulse. (B) X1 10MHz crystal
Line Sync detected. Turn on T1 3VA mains transformer with
ON THE LINE IC3 to allow video sync 0V-6V,0V-6V@0.25A secondary
SK1, SK2 21-pin right-angle
Clearly it would be through. (C) Turn off IC3, SCART socket (2 off)
necessary to remove the turn on IC4 and allow black SK3 2-way PCB-mounting mains
interference pulses and replace level through. (D) Turn off
connecting block (10A 230V AC)
them with an appropriate DC
level, since the TV or VCR
IC4, turn on IC3 to allow Printed circuit board available
burst through from video. (E) from the EPE Online Store , code
requires a reference voltage to 7000251 (www.epemag.com);
set its brightness. The first Turn off IC3, turn on IC4 to plastic case, size 44mm x 146mm
twenty or so lines following the allow black level voltage x 75mm internal; 8-pin DIL socket;
vertical sync pulse are not seen 18-pin DIL socket; L-shaped support
through. Wait for approxi- metal bracket (4 off); multistrand
on a correctly set up TV, so it mately 60us before looping connecting wire; mains cable; 3mm
does not matter if they are lost. back to (A). nuts, bolts, and washers (6 off
However, it is necessary to each); PCB spacer (6 off); rubber
grommet; P-clip for mains lead; LED
allow the color burst and correct must also be taken into account clip; sleeving, solder, etc.
horizontal sync pulses through when designing any circuit.
during this time, otherwise it BLOCK DIAGRAM See also the
would upset the operation of the SHOP TALK Page!
TV. Therefore, it is not just a A simplified block
case of erasing all information schematic for the PIC Video
Approx. Cost
up to the start of the video Cleaner is shown in Fig.2.
Guidance Only $64
information. The Sync Separator (Excl. SCART skts & mains cable)
There is occasionally more LM1881 splits the video sync
signal into its constituent parts, the PIC micrcontroller. The PIC
interference added for a period
two of which, Composite Sync synchronizes with these two
of about a dozen lines before
and Frame Sync, are used by inputs, and turns on either the
the vertical sync pulse, and this
VIDEO
VCR AMPLIFIER
(AD810)
amplifiers (Fig.4), which have a
disable mode built in, thereby
simplifying multiplexing. One is
VIDEO used for the video signal, while
SWITCHING
the other is merely for switching
the black level voltage.
It was found in tests that the
COMP
SYNC TP1 AD810s were very stable, not
prone to bursting into
OUTPUT
TO TV
oscillation, provided the PCB
SYNC
SEPARATOR PIC16F83 was carefully laid out.
(LM1881)
The power supply is
FRAME TP2
SYNC straightforward. The PIC
requires +5V, which will suit the
LM1881, and the AD810s need
a split plus and minus 5V. Both
of these are produced in the
BLACK circuit by a split secondary
VR1 LEVEL
CLAMP transformer and two voltage
regulators.
TP3
VIDEO
AMPLIFIER Note that the supplies to
(AD810)
each IC are individually
Fig.2. Video Cleaner block diagram showing video sig- decoupled with 100nF
nal and control signal paths. capacitors. The regulators
MUST be decoupled with solid
video switching IC (IC3) or the IC2, simply counts in the Line tantalum capacitors placed very
black level clamp IC (IC4). Sync pulses. close to their pins. They have a
FIRMWARE After this period, more far superior (less) leakage factor
Most of the work is done by multiplexer switching is needed to than electrolytic capacitors.
the PIC microcontroller, and the eliminate the interference added Standard right-angled PCB-
sync timing waveform is shown just before Frame Sync goes low. mounting SCART connectors
in Fig.3. The cycle begins with The PIC then checks for Frame are used for signal input and
the rising edge of the Frame Sync and when this is detected output. If your VCR does not
Sync Pulse, following this the the whole cycle repeats for the have SCART connectors,
PIC waits for the next falling even field, and so on, ad simply connect the video output
edge of the Line Sync Pulse infinitum! to pin 20 of the SCART socket
(A). It is this which is used to SK1, and take the output from
start the cycle and subsequently CHOICE OF pin 19 of SK2. It is not
determine which of the two necessary to connect the sound
AD810 multiplexers to turn on COMPONENTS through the circuit in this case.
and which to turn off. Initial tests using a 4MHz PIC
microcontroller proved that it was
Each Line Sync pulse is
too slow; the delay between
CIRCUIT DETAILS
detected and counted as it
arrives. In this way the PIC detecting a sync pulse and The sync separator, PIC
remains in sync with the responding to it was too great. microcontroller, and amplifier
incoming video signal line-by- Changing to a 10MHz device stages for the PIC Video
line. solved this problem. There is still Cleaner are shown in Fig.4. The
some jitter, but this has no regulated power supply circuit
After the first 25 or so lines diagram is shown in Fig.5.
adverse effect on the observed
following Frame Sync, all of the (Note that this circuit is based
image.
video information is allowed on a UK 240V 50Hz mains
through. So for about the next Video switching in the Video
Cleaner is carried out by a pair of power supply, and will have
290 lines, C4 is turned off and
Analog Devices AD810 video to be modified for other
IC3 is turned on and the PIC,
countries’ power supplies. In
VIDEO IN
FROM VCR
SK1
1
+5V 2
3
4
5
6
C6 7
6µ8 C8 R5 C10 8
100n 1k 100n 9
8 10
3 7 0V 0V 11
+ 12
6 13
IC3 14
C2 2 AD810 15
100n R2 14 16
75Ω 1 N.C. R4 17
4 18
C3 N.C. 750Ω
100n 19
8 20
21
+V 0V
N.C. 5 2 4 14 VIDEO OUT

BRST/CLK COMP/VID R3 TO TV
6 3 6 MCLR +V 17 750Ω
RESET V/SYNC RB0 RA0
IC1 7 18
LM1881 RB1 RA1 1
8 1 TP1 TP2 2
7 1 3
OD/EVN COMP/SYNC RB2 IC2 RA2
4
9 PIC16F83 2
RB3 RA3 8 5
GND 10 3 TP3 R8 6
C4 3 7
RB4 RA4/TOCK1 22p + 75Ω 7
4 11 16 6 8
R1 RB5 OSC1 VR1 IC4 9
680k 12 X1 2k 2 AD810 10
RB6 10MHz 14 11
C5 12
13 15 22p 1 N.C. R6
RB7 OSC2 4 R2 C11 13
C1 GND N.C. 1k 75Ω 22µ 14
100n 15
5 16
C7 C9 17
100n 100n 18
19
0V 20
21
SK2
–5V
Fig.4. Main circuit diagram of the PIC Video Cleaner showing the sync separator,
PIC microcontroller and input/output stages.
T1
3VA IC5
SK3/2 1 7805 OUT 2
6V-0V-6V IN +5V
120V 6V COM
REC1 R9
1A C12 3 C14 1k
25V 1000µ 1µ
0V 0V – + D1
RED
120V 6V 0V
0V
SK3/1 C13 C15

0V 0V 1000µ 1 1µ
COM
2 3
IN OUT –5V
IC6
7905
Fig.5. PIC Video Cleaner regulated power supply circuit diagram.

this case you should consult C2. The LM1881 (IC1) splits this low, the output of the relevant
with a qualified electrician if into its constituent parts, two of video amp (IC3 or IC4) goes
you are in any way unsure as which, Vertical Sync and high impedance so blocking the
to what you are doing.) Composite Sync, are fed to the input signal, while logic 1 (+5V)
The incoming video signal, PIC (IC2) at pin 6 (RB0) and pin turns the device on and its input
from pin 20 of input socket SK1, 8 (RB2) respectively. signal is allowed to pass
is AC coupled into IC3, the As IC2 receives the Line through.
video switching AD810, by Sync pulses it counts them, and Video amp IC3 is
capacitor C6 and terminated at depending upon the line number configured as a x2 amplifier and
75 ohms by resistor R2. It is sets the two lines to the IC4 is used as a unity-gain
also AC coupled into the video DISABLE pins (8) of IC3 and buffer switching the DC black
sync separator IC1 by capacitor IC4. When the disable line is level obtained from the voltage
The completed PIC

Video Cleaner PCB
is bolted to the case
“lid” with small spacers
between the base and underside
of the circuit board. Note the “looped” supply
and test point links.
SK1
2 20
SCART GND
1
21
120V
k D1
6V 0V
+
C6
C2
a C 0V T1
R1
3 C
R C1 –5V
9
9 6V 120V
R2
R C7
C 6 C 0V 0V
TP2 10 8
C5 R3
R
5
TP3 MAINS
C4 VR1 R4
TP1 INPUT
IC5 +
+5 1 ,1 SK3
R7
C14
2 &20 C12 1 2
R8
GND + 3 287
+
C11 –5V
21 1 IC6 + +V
C15
SCART + 1 &20
20 2
2 ,1 C13 REC1
3 287
–V
SK2
Fig.6. Printed circuit board com-

ponent layout and
(approximately) full-size copper
foil master pattern for the PIC
Video Cleaner. The SCART
sockets are bolted to the PCB
via
small right-angle brackets.
divider network of resistor R5 transformer last. order to set up the PIC Video
and preset VR1. Do not use IC sockets for Cleaner. Select the video
Resistors R7 and R8 IC3 or IC4. Instead, these channel on the TV. Play back a
terminate the output of the should be soldered directly to good quality video tape through
AD810s at 75 ohms and the board in order to avoid the video recorder and select
capacitor C11 couples the affecting the video signal due to the “AV” channel on the second
output to the TV. parasitic capacitance – be as recorder. This should give direct
quick as possible when carrying picture feed-through from
out this operation. SCART to SCART. Now vary
CONSTRUCTION The PIC IC2 and IC1 are
VR1 until clean whites and a
stable picture are obtained. This
BE AWARE THAT RAW both mounted in sockets. These completes setting up.
MAINS IS PRESENT ON THE sockets should be turned-pin
BOARD. THIS MAY PROVE types if possible for reliability. Complete mounting the unit
LETHAL IF TOUCHED! in its case, carefully pushing
The unit should be housed LED D1 into position as you
Before undertaking any in a plastic case, with holes cut close up the top and secure the
testing, take the precaution of in it for the SCART sockets and mains cable.
placing insulating tape over LED. If the box suggested is
the underside of the used the SCART sockets will
completed circuit board just protrude, making them FAULT FINDING.
where the soldered easier to access when the box If things do not work and the
connections protrude before is assembled. component placement checks
handling the unit with the The SCART sockets are out, carefully check the board
supply switched on. supported with metal L-shaped for solder-whiskers or dry joints.
Construction of the PIC brackets. This helps to prevent Check that the 5V supplies are
Video Cleaner project is based the soldered connections failing both present and correct to
on a single-sided printed circuit due to stress when inserting or within 100mV.
board (PCB). All the removing their plugs.
If these are both correct
components, with the exception The circuit board is disconnect the power and
of the power-on light-emitting mounted with six 3mm bolts and remove the PIC. This allows the
diode (LED) D1, are mounted spacers onto the bottom of the two disable lines to IC3 and IC4
directly on the PCB. D1 is box. Using the unpopulated to be connected to ground (0V)
mounted on one side of the PCB as a drilling template will or +5V without damaging the
case and short wires are ensure correct alignment of the PIC.
soldered to it and its position on mounting holes.
the PCB. With IC2 removed first
establish that a normal tape will
The printed circuit board TESTING AND play back through your TV by
component layout and connecting test point TP1 to
(approximately) full-size copper SETTING UP +5V and TP2 to ground (0V).
foil master are shown in Fig.6. Having completed placing Doing this turns the video signal
This board is available from the the components, check that the ON, and disables the rest of the
EPE Online Store (code ICs and electrolytic capacitors circuit.
7000251) at www.epemag.com are mounted correctly. Then If this works, reverse the
Component placing should check for short circuits on the leads and use a multimeter to
cause no problems. Check the 5V lines with a meter. If these check that the black level
orientation of the ICs and check out apply mains to the voltage is present at test point
electrolytic capacitors before circuit and confirm you have TP3 and is also enabled via IC4
soldering them in place. There +5V and –5V supplies present, on the junction of R7/R8/C11.
are a few jumper/test points and and nothing is getting hot. This should vary from zero to
these should be left long There is only one preset, so 3 3V, as the preset is turned.
¬
enough to attach a ’scope or setting up may be done “live”,

DVM. As is usual practice, start but you will need a second Assuming that this is
by mounting the lowest profile video recorder. It should not be correct, power down and
components first and the mains necessary to record a tape in replace IC2. If you have access
to an oscilloscope check that caused by dirty or worn heads. A ready-programmed PIC
the 10MHz clock is running on Try using a head cleaning tape chip is also available and full
pins 15 and 16 of IC2, and that first, and if this does not correct details, including the above
the MCLR line, pin 4, is at +5V. the problem the VCR should be options, can be found in the
The sync pulses to the PIC swapped for another, newer, Shoptalk page in this issue.
should be clean and the ’scope one.
should have no trouble locking SOFTWARE IN THE FUTURE
on to the VSYNC line.
The software for the PIC This circuit should be fairly
Should the sync pulses Video Cleaner may be
appear to be unstable, having a future-proof since all the work is
downloaded Free from the EPE done by the PIC. It should only
variable length and frequency Online Library at
then the playback VCR is be a matter of re-writing the
www.epemag.com firmware to overcome any
suspect. This problem would be
changes, which may come
along.
My friend’s son? Quite
happy!
Acknowledgments
Analog Devices AD810
datasheet. Antii Paarlahti at
www.cs.tut.fi FAQ and details
of line pulses. National
Semiconductor’s LM1881
datasheet. This datasheet is
also a useful source of
information on the composition
of the video signal and sync
pulses.
*Macrovision is a registered
trademark of Macrovision
Corporation, USA
,QWHUHVWHG LQ SURJUDPPLQJ 3,& PLFURFRQWUROOHUV"
/HDUQ ZLWK 3,&WXWRU E\ -RKQ %HFNHU
This interactive presentation uses the specially
developed Virtual PIC simulator to show exactly
what is happening as you run, or step through,
a program. In this way, the CD brings the EPE
PIC Tutorial series to life and provides the
easiest and best-ever introduction to this
subject.
Nearly 40 tutorials cover almost every aspect

of PIC programming in an easy-to-follow
sequence.
HARDWARE: Whilst the CD-ROM can be used on its own, the

physical demonstration provided by the PICtutor development Kit,
plus the ability to program and test your own PIC16x84s, really
reinforces the lessons learned. The hardware will also be an in- Deluxe PICtutor Hardware
valuable development and programming tool for future work once
you have mastered PIC software writing.
Two levels of PICtutor hardware are available -- Standard and Deluxe. The Standard
unit comes with a battery holder, a reduced number of switches, and no displays. This
version will allow you to complete 25 of the 39 tutorials -- it can be upgraded to
Deluxe at a later date, by adding components, if required.
The Deluxe development kit also has a battery holder (so it can be used around the world), all
switches for both PIC ports, plus LCD and 4-digit 7-segment LED displays. It allows you to
program and control all functions and both ports of the PIC, and to follow all 39 tutorials
on the CD-ROM.
All hardware is supplied fully built and tested and includes a PIC16F84 electrically erasable
programmable microcontroller.
35,&,1* CD-ROM (Hobbyist/Student): $70 US Dollars (plus S&H)

Standard PICtutor Development Kit: $75 US Dollars (plus S&H)
Deluxe PICtutor Development Kit: $160 US Dollars (plus S&H)
9LVLW WKH (3( 2QOLQH VWRUH QRZ WR %8<

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: PC with 486/33MHz or higher, VGA+256 colors or better, CD-
ROM drive, 8MB RAM, 8MB free space on hard disk. Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, mouse.
),1' ,7 '21·7 /26( ,7
E\ 7(55< '( 9$8;B%$/%,51,(
Locates almost anything in the dark! fitted to the box so that, say, a
bunch of keys or a torch could
be hung from it (see
A fuse blows and the lights go diode (LED) begins to flash photograph).
out. Everything goes dark. You briefly about once every five It would also be possible to
fumble for the torch – you know seconds. This helps to locate attach the unit to a portable
it’s there somewhere – but the item. item. In some cases, it might
where? If preferred, you could even be possible to build the
Let this little gadget show you increase or reduce the flash circuit panel inside a piece of
where! rate. However, any increase equipment but the reader will
would reduce the life of the need to make certain that he or
battery. she is totally aware of any
FIND IT safety implications and must be
competent at doing the job
With the battery-powered LIGHTING THE WAY correctly.
Find It circuit, you will always be
able to locate a torch (flashlight), There are many ways of If you are going to use the
bunch of keys, door lock – just using this circuit and readers device to locate a door lock, it
about anything – in darkness! will, no doubt, have their own may be convenient to have only
ideas. One method would be to the LED showing next to the
While sufficient light reaches attach the unit to a wall close to
a sensor (light dependent resistor lock and connect it to the unit
the object to be “found”. mounted on the inside of the
– LDR) on the unit, nothing Alternatively, a hook could be
happens. However, when it is door.
dark enough, a light-emitting
VR1 R3 10M
1M 2M2
R5
SEE
TEXT
R1 4M7
1M
7
2 8
B1
,& 6 3V
3 ,&/
+ (2 x AA)
4 4 8
R2 RESET VCC
(5M a 7
DIS.
DARK) D1 R6
R4
k
IC2 220k
2M2 ICM7555IPA
3 6
OUT THRES.
2
TRIG
GND C1
1 470n
Fig.1. Complete circuit diagram for Find it. Left, Find It

being used as an illuminated keyring hook.
RED
As well as household VR1
R5
applications, this circuit will be R1 R3
a
found handy in many outdoor
D1
pursuits. Campers and anglers LINK
R6 k (+V)
will certainly find uses for it. Note R2 BLACK (–V)
R4
that, in some cases, it will be C1
necessary to waterproof the box
and this is left up to the
constructor. SOLDER JOINT
The circuit draws power from

two AA-size alkaline cells, which
should give some one or two 10M 4M7
years of service. Since it requires
more current while the LED is
flashing, the actual life of the R5 PADS
batteries will depend on the 252 ON PCB
Fig.3
number of hours of darkness in a
given 24 hour period. It also Fig.2. Printed circuit board component layout and
depends on what degree of
illumination is set for the unit to (approximately) full size copper foil master
begin operating. pattern. Fig.3 (inset). How to make up R5 by
While sufficient light reaches
wiring two resistors in series.
the sensor (so that the LED is
correspondingly dimmer down a very high resistance, the
off), the current requirement of
to about 2V which is the continuous current flowing
the prototype circuit is only 5uA
practical end point. through them is only a fraction of
which may be regarded as
CIRCUIT a microamp.
negligible. While the LED is
flashing, this rises to an average DESCRIPTION The opamp’s non-inverting
250uA approximately. input, pin 3, is connected to a
The complete circuit further potential divider. The top
This small operating current diagram for the Find It project is arm of this comprises preset
is achieved by using a short duty shown in Fig.1. This may be potentiometer VR1 connected in
cycle – that is, the LED is off for considered to comprise two series with fixed resistor R1. The
much longer than it is on – about sections. The first is the light lower one is simply light-
65 times longer. Thus, in each sensing part based on IC1 and dependent resistor (LDR) R2.
five second cycle the LED is only associated components and the
actually operating for some 0 08s As the intensity of light
¬
second, the LED flasher
(80ms). reaching the LDR’s sensitive
centered on IC2.
surface falls, its resistance rises
Although while glowing the Integrated circuit IC1 is an and so does the voltage across it
LED draws about 10mA, the operational amplifier (opamp). and hence at the non-inverting
average requirement is therefore This has been specially selected input, pin 3. Depending on the
only 150uA approximately. This is for its ability to operate from a adjustment of VR1, this voltage
added to the 100uA low supply voltage combined will exceed that at the inverting
approximately required by the with an exceptionally small input, pin 2, at the operating light
rest of the circuit, giving a total of standby operating current. level.
250uA. If it is assumed that there
Looking at the light sensor A simple rule about opamps
are eight hours of operation in a
stage first, the opamp inverting is this. When the voltage applied
24 hour period, the average
input (pin 2) is maintained at a to the non-inverting input exceeds
overall current requirement is
voltage equal to one-half that of that at the inverting one (as will
therefore only 80uA
approximately. the supply (nominally 1 5V), due
¬ happen here in dim light), the
to the effect of equal value output (pin 6) will be high. When
While the battery voltage resistors R3 and R4 connected it is less (bright light), it will be
exceeds about 2 5V, the LED will
¬
as a potential divider across the low.
flash brightly. It will become power supply. Since these have The ICL7611 has an almost
the required value), resistor R6 the criteria are met for the
COMPONENTS and capacitor C1. astable to operate and the LED
Resistors The on times (during which flashes.
R1 1M (or as required - see text) the output, pin 3, is high) are In the original version of the
R2 sub-miniature light-dependent circuit, the LED D1 anode (a)
provided when C1 charges
resistor (5mm diameter,
5 megohms dark - see text) through resistors R5 and R6 to was connected direct to supply
R3, R4 2M2 (2 off) two-thirds of supply voltage (2V positive so relieving IC1 of its
R5 14M7 (10M and 4M7 in series approx.). After that, the capacitor load. However, even with IC1
or as required - see text) discharges via internal circuitry pin 6 low (and so apparently no
R6 220k supply existing for IC2), the
through resistor R6 alone to one-
All 0.25W 5% carbon film except R2
third of supply voltage (1V LED continued to flash dimly!
Potentiometer approx.) and this gives the off
VR1 1M miniature enclosed carbon It seems that current sinking
preset, vertical
period during which pin 3 is low. through the LED provided a
Capacitor This cycle repeats indefinitely weak supply for IC2 which
C1 470n miniature metalized as long as a supply exists to pin 8 allowed it to oscillate. In the
polyester - 5mm pin spacing and the reset input at pin 4 is final version of the circuit the
Semiconductors high. With the values of anode of D1 is connected to IC1
D1 3mm red high-brightness components specified, each cycle output and this solves the
LED (see text)
IC1 ICL7611 micopower opamp takes about five seconds. above problem. When the LDR
IC2 ICM75551PA low-power Since resistor R5 has a much receives sufficient light, there is
CMOS timer higher value than R6, capacitor no power supply for IC2 and
Miscellaneous C1 charging time is much longer nothing happens.
B1 3V battery pack (2 x AA cells than the discharge time. Thus, Using IC1 to switch on the
with holder).
the time during which output pin 3 power supply for IC2 has a
Printed circuit board available is high is much greater than when particular advantage in that IC2
from the EPE Online Store , code it is low. If a LED was connected draws no current at all while the
7000252 (www.epemag.com); between pin 3 and the 0V rail, this LDR receives sufficient light,
plastic case, size 102mm x 76mm would give the opposite effect to and this greatly reduces the
x 38mm external; 8-pin DIL socket
that which was required – it would standby current requirement of
(2 off); PP3-type battery connector
(or as appropriate for the holder); be on for longer than it was off! the circuit as a whole.
connecting wire, solder, etc. To overcome this, the
current-sinking capability of IC2 is CONSTRUCTION
See also the
exploited. That is, current is able
SHOP TALK Page! All components, except the
to flow from supply positive
through the LED and into the cell holder, are mounted on a
Approx. Cost small single-sided printed circuit
Guidance Only $16 output.
With the LED connected like
board (PCB). The topside
(Excluding Batts) component layout and full size
this, current will flow through it underside copper foil track
full output swing between the when pin 3 is low rather than master are shown in Fig.2. This
supply voltage, and its output when it is high. The result is that board is available from the EPE
will therefore go from 0V to 3V the on transitions are much Online Store (code 7000252) at
nominal as the light level falls to shorter than the off ones. Note www.epemag.com
the required operating point. that there is no need to use a
current-limiting resistor connected Begin construction by
in series with the LED, because drilling the fixing holes then
LIGHT FLASHER the operating current is limited to solder the IC sockets and single
Now let us look at the LED a suitable level by the chip itself. link wire in position. Do not
flasher based on IC2. This insert the ICs themselves yet,
Referring back to the however. Follow with all other
consists of an astable (free- operation of IC1, its output (pin 6)
running pulse generator). Its components except the LED D1
is connected to IC2 pin 8 (supply and LDR R2.
frequency is related to the value positive) and pin 4 (reset) so,
of resistor R5 (in the prototype, The suggested value for
:
while IC1 output is high (that is,
this consisted of two resistors when the LDR is sufficiently dark) resistor R5 (14 7M ) may be
¬
connected in series to make up

sleeving. Solder the end wires
of the PP3-type battery
connector (or as appropriate for
the battery holder being used)
to the “+V” (red) and “0V”
(black) points on the PCB.
Insert the ICs, with the
correct orientation, into their
sockets. Since they are both
CMOS components, they could
possibly be damaged by static
charge, which might exist on the
body. It would therefore be wise
to touch something which is
earthed (such as a water tap) to
Completed unit showing positioning of the circuit remove any such charge before
board and the two-cell holder. Note the light handling the pins.
dependent resistor (LDR) mounted in one
side panel. TESTING
made up using a 10M unit : slightly higher than the face of the A check may be carried out
before mounting the PCB in the
connected in series with a lid. Take care over its polarity
:
4 7M one. These are arranged
¬
(the slightly shorter lead is the
cathode (k).
box. In that way, any faults will
be more easily rectified.
as shown in Fig.3 with the free
ends soldered to the “R5” pads Note that the specified LED Adjust preset VR1 fully anti-
on the PCB. used in the prototype is the high- clockwise (as viewed from the
brightness type, and this was top edge of the PCB). This will
Raising the value of the allow the circuit to respond
combination would reduce the found to give better results than
the standard variety. However, without having to cover the LDR
flash rate and vice-versa. A 10 completely and this will make
megohm, resistor alone would beware of any LED that has a
narrow viewing angle. This could testing easier. Insert the cells
give a rate of about one flash into their holder taking care with
every three seconds. prevent it from being seen if the
user is too far off-axis. the polarity and connect it up.
If you are using the With the LDR covered with
specified miniature LDR having The LDR leads should be of
such a length that its “window” the hand, the LED D1 should
a “dark” resistance of about
:
5M , then the suggested value will take up a position level with
either the top face or side of the
flash about once every five
seconds. Be patient because
of resistor R1 will probably be you will have to wait longer than
found to work well. If you use a box depending on the layout
decided on. Solder it in place this for the first flash. The actual
different LDR having a lower rate is not particularly important
“dark” resistance (say, the using as little heat as possible to
prevent possible damage. but it could be made faster or
common ORP12 type), you may slower by reducing or increasing
need to reduce the value of R1 If you wish to mount the LED the value of R5 respectively.
to, say, 100k .: remotely from the PCB, use a
Now, uncover the LDR so
piece of light-duty twin-stranded
wire soldered to its copper pads that light falls on it. The LED
FINAL ASSEMBLY on the PCB. When soldering the should stop flashing. If you find
LED to the other end, take care difficulty making it work, try
Hold the PCB a small again with the LED covered
distance above the base of the over the polarity.
more carefully or take the unit
box and decide how long the Also, be careful to avoid into a dark cupboard.
LED and LDR leads need to be. short-circuits at the joints.
The LED should be soldered so Insulate and waterproof them as Adjust VR1 so that the
that its tip will eventually stand necessary using heat-shrinkable circuit operates at the required
degree of illumination. You may
find that you need to make Carefully measure the the LED begins to flash at the
further small adjustments when positions of the LED and LDR required light level.
the circuit panel is mounted in and drill the holes for these Clockwise rotation of the
position. components. The hole for the sliding contact (as viewed from
LED should be of such a the top edge of the PCB) allows
diameter that its tip will protrude operation with less light. If you
BOX IT through it only slightly. That for would like the LED to start
If a hook or something the LDR should be a little flashing under dimmer
similar is to be attached to the smaller than its window so that conditions and this is not
case, take account of the PCB this will lie just behind the hole possible with VR1 adjusted fully
position so that any fixings will when the PCB is in position. clockwise, increase the value of
not cause a short-circuit. If required, you could drill a resistor R1 – 2 2 megohms
¬
Remove the connector from small hole to allow preset VR1 would be a good starting point.
the cell holder. Position the to be adjusted from outside the
Put the Find It into service.
PCB on the bottom of the box case using a small screwdriver
When the LED begins to flash
and mark through the fixing or trimming tool. However, this
too dimly to be seen effectively,
holes. Remove the PCB again was not done in the prototype.
it is time to replace the
and drill them through. batteries.
Decide where the hole is to FINISHING OFF
be drilled to allow light to reach
Attach the PCB using
the LDR. It must not be
plastic spacers on the bolt
obscured too much during use
shanks so that the LED and
or this would result in the LED
LDR take up their correct
flashing more than necessary
positions. Attach the cell holder
with a consequent increase in
to the bottom of the box using a
the current requirement.
small fixing.
In the prototype, the LDR
Secure the lid of the case
leads were bent through right-
taking care that the LED
angles (see photograph) and the
engages with its hole and test
hole was made in the side of the
the circuit under real conditions.
box. However, the exact
Make further adjustments to
arrangements will depend on
preset VR1 if necessary so that
the application.
ROLL-UP, ROLL-UP! Win a Pico PC-Based Oscilloscope
Ingenuity is our regular round-up of readers' own • 50MSPS Dual Channel Storage
circuits. We pay between $16 and $80 for all material Oscilloscope
published, depending on length and technical merit. • 25MHz Spectrum Analyzer
We're looking for novel applications and circuit tips, not
simply mechanical or electrical ideas. Ideas must be the • Multimeter
reader's own work and must not have been submitted • Frequency Meter
for publication elsewhere. The circuits shown have • Signal Generator
NOT been proven by us. Ingenuity Unlimited is open to
ALL abilities, but items for consideration in this column If you have a novel circuit idea which
should preferably be typed or word-processed, with a would be of use to other readers, then a Pico
brief circuit description (between 100 and 500 words Technology PC based oscilloscope could be
maximum) and full circuit diagram showing all relevant yours.
component values. Please draw all circuit schematics Every six months, Pico Technology will be
as clearly as possible. awarding an ADC200-50 digital storage oscil-
loscope for the best IU submission. In addi-
Send your circuit ideas to: Alan Winstanley,
tion, two single channel ADC-40s will be pre-
Ingenuity Unlimited, Wimborne Publishing Ltd., Allen
sented to the runners up.
House, East Borough, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 1PF.
They could earn you some real cash and a prize!
Mini Disc Optical Interface Link-Up @?G5B D?DH!'&

F95G54
Being the proud owner of a system at all (see Fig.1). The B922?> 6B?=
312<5 25<?G
new Mini Disc recorder, my connections were simple, 5V, 34 B?=
ground and the signal wire 4B9F5 <56D 1>4
problem was that I only had the B978D <9>5
usual line output on my hi-hi which can be picked up from ?ED@ED
system to record from. I wanted the rear of the CD ROM 4979D1<

drive. C97>1< B!
to use the MD to its fullest (["
F
extent to record digitally The Toshiba transmitter 7B?E>4
instead, so as not to lose any is available from Maplin, part
quality at all. no. SV09K, and this can be 7B?E>4 %F
I found the answer in the soldered to a small piece of Fig.1. Mini Disk Optical
shape of a fiber optical stripboard and fitted within the Interface.
transmitting module for a PC. I used a spare drive bay
blanking plate to mount the the PC CD ROM drive when
standard optical cable (itself
opto-emitter unit. The Mini Disc required. Hobbyists could
available in the High Street).
player can then be connected to experiment using old spare CD
The Toshiba TOTX176 module
ROM drives as well.
has its own drive circuitry for
the emitter LED and can be P. Mcleod
used as an interface. A
VCO Generator – Sine/
Ross on Wye, UK
datasheet is available from the Square Triangle Output
Toshiba web site at The circuit diagram of Fig.2 switched sign amplifier.
www.toshiba.com was an attempt to produce a When the MOSFET transis-
In the end, the source for waveform generator using sim- tor TR1 is switched off, IC1a
the digital signals was to be ple building blocks instead of acts as a non-inverting amplifier
found on the rear of the CD proprietary generator chips. In with a gain of +1. When TR1 is
ROM in my PC, not in the hi-fi the outline circuit shown, IC1a on, the gain is –1. IC1b forms
and associated parts form a an integrator with resistor R5
,QJHQXLW\ 8QOLPLWHG
INPUT TRIANGLE
R1 R4
and capacitor Cl. Its output 20k 20k
C1
OUT
1n
ramps up with a negative input R8
200k
and down with a positive input. R5
10k
SQUARE
OUT
R2 R3 R7
100k
The NAND gates IC2a and 10k 10k
+ IC2a IC2b
4011 4011
IC2b, along with resistors R7 IC1a
+
D1 D2
and R8, form a large hysteresis d
TR1
ZVN4306
TL084 OR
TL074 R6
IC1b
TL084 OR
2V2 2V2 SQUARE OUT
Schmitt trigger, so that when g

10k TL074
R9
10k R11
11k
the integrator ramps up to three- s
quarters of the total supply it

SINE
switches high and when it OUT
IC1c
ramps down to one-quarter it +
switches low. The Schmitt con-
R10
trols the “sign” of IC1a and thus 5k
the slope of IC1b. The triangular 0V
waveform from the integrator 0V
(IC1b) goes to IC1c, which is a Fig.2. Circuit diagram for the VCO Waveform Generator.
simple inverting amplifier fitted
with a “dead band limiter” com-
reduced. This rounds off the peaks is about right. Both the fre-
prising D1 and D2, two identical
to give a fair approximation of a quency and the sensitivity are
Zener diodes.
sinewave. controlled by resistor R5 and
When the triangular wave- capacitor C1.
With a power supply of +6V
form from the integrator ex-
and a Zener value of 2 2V, resistor ¬
A. E. Whittaker
ceeds the forward plus the
Zener voltages (in either polar- R11 should be adjusted to give the Stone, Staffs, UK
ity) the gain of the amplifier is best results. A value of 11 kilohms
IAN POOLE LOOKS AT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS TO IMPROVE THE LIGHT
EFFICIENCY OF L.E.D.S
It is now some years since Electrical World, although no more common semiconductors,
light emitting diodes (LEDs) further work was done. silicon and germanium do not
were first available for use. The idea was not taken any emit light.
Since then they have become further for several years, and In a p-n junction it is found
very popular as convenient and did not surface again until it was that the p-type region has an
reliable indicators. observed by O. V. Losov in excess of holes and the n-type
Originally LEDs were only 1922. Unfortunately, he lived in region an excess of electrons
available in red. Now having Leningrad and he was killed in caused by the doping. When a
undergone a considerable the Second World War when forward bias is applied to the
amount of development they Hitler advanced on Russia. junction the electrons are
are available in a wide variety Although he published a total of attracted across the junction
of colors. Orange and yellow four patents up until 1942, the region into the p-type region.
were the first to follow red, but details of his work were never The same potential pulls the
most other colors are available, discovered. However, it was holes in the opposite direction,
although they are slightly more Messrs. Bay and Szigeti who but across the junction. When
expensive. Infrared emitters are actually patented LEDs in 1939. the holes and electrons meet
also available, and these are The LED resurfaced again they start to recombine. As a
widely used in remote controls in 1951 after the discovery of result of this action a current
for televisions, video recorders the bipolar transistor. A team of flows across the junction.
and a wide variety of other researchers led by K. Lehovac When this occurs in an
products that need remote started investigations into the LED, energy is released, some
control. effect. The level of research of which is in the form of
The cost of these indicators grew rapidly and a number of photons. Interestingly it is found
and displays is very low. companies were involved. This that more light is usually
Standard indicator lamps are resulted in the first light emitting produced from the p-type side
available for a few pence, and diodes being marketed in the of the junction, and this is kept
high output devices are a little late 1960s. closest to the surface of the
more. Alphanumeric displays diode to ensure that the
are also very reasonably priced, minimum amount of light is
BASICS absorbed.
making them ideal for use in
home electronic products as Light emitting diodes are a To produce light of the color
well as many commercial ones. specialized form of p-n junction. or correct wavelength, the
They are different from normal correct materials must be used
p-n junctions in that they must and the device tailored for the
BEGINNINGS be fabricated from a compound application. Pure gallium
The phenomenon behind semiconductor like gallium arsenide releases energy in the
light emitting diodes was first arsenide, gallium phosphide or infrared portion of the spectrum.
seen many years ago. A British indium phosphide. In the To enable light in the visible red
development engineer named example of gallium arsenide, end of the spectrum to be
H. J. Round, who was famous gallium has a valency of three produced, aluminum is added to
for many thermionic valve and arsenic a valency of five the semiconductor to give
developments, first noticed it in and as such they are known as aluminum gallium arsenide
1907 when he was making group III-V semiconductors. (AlGaAs). Phosphorus can also
some investigations into point Other compound be added to give red light.
contact crystal detectors. He semiconductors are also formed
from group III-V materials. The For other colors other
reported these discoveries in
1HZ WHFKQRORJ\ 8SGDWHV
of current being used to give a semiconductor interface at an
simple indication is very high. angle such that a greater
Over the years proportion of the light is
improvements have been made transmitted through the
to improve the technology. As interface and not reflected back,
most of the light is generated at see Fig.1.
the p-type side of the junction, The real elegance of the
this is generally placed closer to new idea lies in its simplicity.
the surface of the This makes it easy to
semiconductor so that any light implement and as a result it is
that is produced has less expected that the idea will be
distance to travel through the taken up quite quickly.
semiconductor and hence less With LEDs being so widely
light is absorbed. used, it is anticipated that the
Other techniques to new LEDs will soon become
Fig.1. Light paths for improve the efficiency are also commonplace, finding uses in
traditional and new reverse employed. Often a coating aircraft, spatial marking lights,
tapered LEDs. applied to the surface of the traffic signals, and even as
diode to match the refractive night lights in homes.
materials are used. For index can triple the light output,
example gallium phosphide but despite this procedure a
gives green light and aluminum complete match cannot be
indium gallium phosphide is obtained and it is found that
used for yellow and orange only half of the internally
light. Most LEDs are based on reflected light is released.
gallium semiconductors.
It is also possible to
encapsulate the LED in plastic
EFFICIENCY that better matches the
One of the problems that is refractive indices to help reduce
common to most forms of light reflections, but this only yields a
emitter is that of efficiency. The small increase in output.
common incandescent light bulb
is notoriously inefficient, and NEW DEVELOPMENT
LEDs also have a relatively low
level of efficiency. Whilst this In a LED it has been found
may not be a major that a large proportion of the
consideration in many light is lost as a result of total
applications it is nevertheless a internal reflection at the
major factor in many designs, interface with the air. In a new
particularly those that are initiative, NASA is licensing
battery powered. some of the fruits of its
development for nominal fees
A typical LED may consume and with the minimum of
as much as 20mA and most of formalities. One of these is a
this is dissipated as heat. If the structure for a LED where the
efficiency was improved then level of light that is lost by
the current consumption could internal reflection is greatly
be correspondingly reduced, reduced.
thereby saving battery power.
As many of the ICs used in The improvement is
pieces equipment like cellular achieved by having a reverse
phones only consume a taper on the semiconductor
milliamp or so, and provide a chip. This changes the direction
large amount of functionality, that some of the light takes so
this means that the proportion that it strikes the air-
7(&+12/2*< 7,0(/,1(6 3DUW
E\ $OYLQ %URZQ DQG &OLYH ´0D[µ 0D[ILHOG
Boldly going behind the beyond, behind which no one as the world was poised to enter
has boldly gone behind, beyond, before! the 20th Century.
Then, over the coming
Today it is difficult to imagine gone from close to nothing months, we will take a
a world where communication (technology-wise) to where we retrospective view of the
between continents could take are today in the last 100 years, technological developments of
months, an incandescent light and many observers feel that the last millennium as we
bulb could cause a crowd to gasp our current accomplishments investigate the key people and
in awe, and the most complicated represent only the “tip of the events in three arenas:
calculations were performed iceberg”. Thus, as we enter the Fundamental Electronics,
using only pencil and paper. By 21st Century we are poised on Communications, Computers.
comparison, we now find the brink of unimaginable During our discussions we
ourselves in the rather strange possibilities and potentialities. shall discover the way in which
position that a whole generation As Captain James T. Kirk would everything is interrelated, such
has grown up surrounded by the have it: “We are boldly going that inventions in disparate
trappings of modern technological behind the beyond, behind fields can be combined in ways
civilization. which no one has boldly gone their originators never dreamt
behind, beyond, before!” of, catapulting us into a future
This generation can barely
conceive life without the near- none of us can conceive in our
instantaneous communication, WHO, WHAT, WHEN, wildest dreams.
entertainment, and data WHERE? Knowing how rapidly things
processing and presentation have changed over the last few
The purpose of this series is
capabilities provided by such decades, only a fool would dare
to review how we got where we
gadgets as radios, television, to predict the future with any
are today (and where we look
cellphones and computers. level of confidence. Thus, we
like ending up tomorrow). In this
Yet the thought of personal shall leave such pontifications
first installment, we shall cast
computers in the home was to the final installment, where
our gaze into the depths of time
inconceivable to the vast majority we shall consider emerging new
to consider the state of the art
of the population as little as 20 technologies and peer into our
years ago. Similarly, color
television was well beyond the
means of most households when
it was introduced a little over 40
years ago; only a tiny minority of
the population had any access to
a telephone just sixty years ago;
and even a rudimentary radio was
the privilege of the favored few
only 80 years ago.
In fact the 20th Century has
seen phenomenal technological
progress (along with The sketch in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, which illustrates
corresponding impacts on our
culture). In many respects we’ve
his ideas for a calculating machine, in the year 1500. Courtesy
of IBM.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
energy in a Leyden jar. based on static electricity called
(A Leyden jar is a device the electrophorous. This
that early experimenters used to consisted of one metal plate
store and investigate electric covered with ebonite and a
energy. Early implementations second metal plate with an
consisted of a cylindrical glass insulated handle. When the
container with layers of metal ebonite-covered plate was
foil on the inside and outside.) rubbed, it gained a negative
electric charge.
Based on these
experiments, Franklin When the other plate with the
concluded that electrical current handle was subsequently placed
had traveled from the storm over it, a positive electric charge
clouds down the kite string. By was attracted to its lower surface
this he proved that lightning was and a negative charge was
By complete contrast with repelled to the upper surface.
the sketch of 1500, detail of actually a natural form of
electricity. (This experiment was This type of charge-accumulating
a modern 64Kb memory extremely dangerous, as was device replaced earlier Leyden
chip. Courtesy of IBM. demonstrated by one Professor jars and formed the basis for the
Richman who received a more- electronic components called
crystal balls to cast some than-bracing stroke of lightning condensers (capacitors) used
predictions for technological from his apparatus.) today.
advancements in the future.
STATIC ELECTRICITY BATTERIES
PHYSICS AND GENERATORS Another of Count Volta’s
inventions was the electric battery
ELECTRONICS The Italian Count
in 1800. These Voltaic
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio
PRIOR TO 1900 Anastasio Volta invented
accumulators as they were known
Early man knew of the two played an important part in
numerous gadgets in his
major forms of electricity: static ushering in the “era of electricity”.
lifetime, including a device
electricity and naturally
occurring lightning. However,
very little was understood about
either of these phenomena until
the 18th Century (except in
generalities, such as waving a
sword around during a
thunderstorm wasn’t a
particularly good idea).
THE FIRST LIGHTNING

SCIENTIST
Early cultures explained
lightning in terms of myth and
magic. It wasn’t until 1752 that
lightning’s secrets began to be
revealed when Benjamin
Historical artwork of a man (at left) holding a Leyden jar, which
Franklin performed his
notorious kite experiment. is being used to store electricity generated by the spherical
Franklin tied a metal key to the electrostatic generator at right. The Leyden jar contains water
end of a kite string, set the kite and a brass rod. The man holding it acts as an earthed con-
flying during a thunderstorm (do ductor. Now rarely used outside of the classroom, the Leyden
NOT try this at home!), and jar was invented at the University of Leyden in the Nether-
collected and stored electrical lands in 1746. Courtesy of the Science Photo Library.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
The measure of electric
potential was named the Volt in TIMELINES
his honor. 1500: Italy. Leonardo da Vinci
sketches details of a rudimen-
ELECTROMAGNETICS tary mechanical calculator.
Following in the footsteps of 1565: The pencil is invented.
Benjamin Franklin and other 1588: The Spanish Armada comes
early scientists, the English to visit England (they were
physicist and chemist Michael soon to regret this).
Faraday was made famous by
1600: John Napier invents a simple
his studies of electricity and
multiplication table called
electromagnetism. In the early
Napier’s Bones (he also in-
part of the 19th Century,
vented logarithms – 1614).
Faraday discovered that
electricity could be made by 1621: William Oughtred invents the
moving a magnet inside a wire slide rule (based on John
coil. This led him to build the Napier’s logarithms).
first electric motor, generator, 1623: Wilhelm Schickard invents the
and transformer. first mechanical calculator.
(Around the same time that 1642: Blaise Pascal invents a me-
Faraday was working on his chanical calculator, the Arith-
experiments, Andre Ampere metic Machine.
was also investigating the
effects of electric currents in 1671: Baron Gottfried von Leibniz
magnetic fields, while Georg invents a mechanical calcula-
Ohm started studying the tor, the Step Reckoner.
electrical resistance exhibited 1746: Holland. Leyden jar invented.
by different materials. Based on 1752: America. Benjamin Franklin
Volta’s “pile” or battery of their work, the unit of current
1800. Volta (1745-1827) was performs his notorious kite ex-
was called an Amp and the unit periments.
a professor of physics at the of resistance an Ohm in their
University of Pavia, Italy. honor). 1770: The eraser is invented.
Courtesy of the Science Faraday introduced several 1775: Italy. Count Alessandro
Photo Library. words that we still use today to Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio
discuss electricity, including Volta invents a static electric-
The first battery consisted anode, cathode, electrode, and ity generator/the elec-
of two bowls of salt solution that ion. Faraday was a great trophorous.
were connected by means of a speaker and every year on 1800: Italy. Count Alessandro
metal strip dipping in the Christmas Day he presented Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio
solution and connecting one special lectures for children. Volta invents the first battery.
bowl to the next. One end of the The unit of capacitance (an
metal strip was made of copper, 1801: France. Joseph-Marie
amount of electrical charge)
while the other was formed from Jacquard invents a loom con-
called the Farad was named in
tin or zinc. Volta subsequently trol using punched cards.
his honor, and “Faraday
improved on his initial design by Lectures” are still held to this 1820: France. Andre Ampere investi-
making it less “watery” and day presented by famous guest gates the force on an electric
more compact. He achieved speakers. current in a magnetic field.
this using small round plates of 1821: England. Michael Faraday in-
copper and zinc, separated by vents the first electric motor.
discs of cardboard moistened in NOTHING SUCKS LIKE A
salt solution. The resulting GEISSLER! 1821: England. Michael Faraday
Voltaic pile produced a steady In 1855, a German glass plots the magnetic field around
stream of electricity and was the blower named Heinrich Geissler a conductor.
forerunner of today’s batteries. invented a powerful vacuum 1821: England. Sir Charles Wheat-
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
stone reproduces sound. William Crookes had the
1822: England. Charles Bab- resources to carry out scientific
bage starts to build a me- investigations in the comfort of
chanical calculating ma- his private laboratory. Following
chine, the Difference En- the development of the cathode
gine. ray tube, Crookes devised a
series of experiments based on
1822: France. Andre Ampere his own version called the
discovers that two wires Crookes’ Tube.
with electric currents at-
tract. By placing an obstacle, a
Maltese Cross, in the path of his
1823: England. Michael Fara- cathode rays and casting a
day liquifies chlorine. shadow in the fluorescent end
of the tube, Crookes
pump. Geissler then proceeded
demonstrated that these rays
to use his pump to evacuate a
usually traveled in straight lines.
glass tube containng electrodes
Crookes also showed that the
to a previously unattainable
beam of cathode rays could be
vacuum. Using these Geissler
The first electric lamp with a deflected by means of a
Tubes, experimenters magnet. These studies led to
discovered a form of radiation, light bulb. It was designed by
the discovery of the electron by
which they called cathode rays. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-
J.J. Thompson in 1887.
These tubes, which 1931) in 1879. Edison had Crookes’ observations of the
subsequently became known as invested $50,000 and a year dark space at the cathode also
cathode ray tubes (CRTs), were of his time to conduct 6,000 led to the discovery of X-rays by
to prove instrumental in the trials whilst researching a Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in
discovery of all sorts of things, 1896.
including the electron and X-
practical light bulb. Courtesy
rays. Over time, CRT-based of the Science Photo Library.
displays were to include DISCOVERY OF THE
oscilloscopes, radar screens, an engineer working for Edison, ELECTRON
television sets, and computer observed that he could detect
electrons flowing through the The son of a Manchester
monitors. bookseller, Joseph John (J.J.)
vacuum from the lighted
filament to a metal plate Thompson entered college at
INCANDESCENT LIGHT mounted inside the bulb. the age of fourteen (so we can
BULBS Although Hammer discovered assume he wasn’t a complete
this phenomena, it subsequently dingbat) and was later elected a
Who invented the first fellow of the Royal Society and
electric light bulb? Do we hear became known as the Edison
Effect. As Edison later admitted, appointed to the Chair of
you cry “The famous American Physics at the Cavendish
Inventor, Thomas Alva Edison”? he did not even understand
Ohm’s law at that time. Thus, Laboratory in Cambridge
Well it’s certainly true that University.
Edison did invent a light bulb, the Edison Effect remained an
but he wasn’t the first! In 1878, unexplained curiosity for fifteen In 1897, whilst investigating
an English physicist and years until J.J. Thompson cathode rays using Geissler’s
electrician, Sir Joseph Wilson discovered the existence of tubes, J.J. Thompson made his
Swan, successfully electrons. As we shall see in greatest discovery. In addition
demonstrated a true Part 2, the reason the Edison to providing evidence that these
incandescent bulb – a year Effect is significant is that it was rays consisted of charged
earlier than Edison. Like Edison, to lead to the invention of particles (which J.J. called
Swan’s light bulb employed a vacuum tubes. corpuscles, but which later
conducting filament mounted in became known as electrons), he
a glass bulb from which air was CROOKES’ TUBE also measured the ratio of their
evacuated leaving a vacuum. charge to mass and was able to
As the heir to a large show that the mass of these
In 1883, William Hammer, fortune, the experimenter particles was approximately
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
Physics in 1901, and his X-rays COMMUNICATIONS
now affect most people’s lives
in one way or another. PRIOR TO 1900
The earliest form of
TIMELINES signaling was a man running
from one place to another with a
1827: England. Sir Charles verbal message. Perhaps the
Wheatstone constructs a most famous example of this
microphone. was exhibited in 490 BC, when
1827: Germany. Georg Ohm Pheidippedes carried the news
investigates electrical re- of victory at the Battle of
sistance and defines Marathon 26 miles to Athens
Ohm’s Law. and then dropped down dead
from exhaustion!
1829: England. Sir Charles
Wheatstone invents the
concertina. SMOKE AND MIRRORS
1831: England. Michael Fara- Drums and smoke signals
day creates the first elec- have also been used since
An early ornamental ancient times, along with
tric dynamo.
Crookes’ tube, with metal trumpets and other audible
flowers that glowed when a 1831: England. Michael Fara-
signaling devices. In one
current flowed. day creates the first elec-
example, chains of Roman
tric transformer.
soldiers were stationed on
1/1800 that of a hydrogen atom. 1831: England. Michael Fara- hilltops to shout messages to
This discovery won Thompson day discovers magnetic each other. Using this method it
the Nobel Prize in 1906. lines of force. was claimed that a signal could
1831: England. Michael Fara- be relayed 450 miles in 48
X-RAYS day discovers that a mov- hours! (And if they were very
ing magnet induces an lucky, the message that was
In the latter part of the 19th received bore more than a
century, the German physicist electric current.
passing resemblance to the one
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen 1831: England. Michael Fara- that had been transmitted.)
discovered that some unknown day discovers the princi-
radiation coming from a ple of electromagnetic Signalers in England used
Crookes’ Tube caused certain induction. beacons to send long distance
crystals to glow. He also messages (hence the presence
1832: England. Joseph Henry of so many landmarks called
discovered that this radiation
discovers self-inductance. “Beacon Hill” or “Signal Hill”). In
(which became known as X-
rays) could pass through solid 1832: England. Charles Bab- fact, this method was used to
objects and affect photographic bage conceives the first send a message from Plymouth
plates. The first medical use of mechanical computer/the to London to communicate the
this discovery was an X-ray Analytical Engine. approach of the Spanish
image he made of his wife’s Armada in 1588.
1833: England. Michael Fara-
hand. day defines the laws of Unfortunately, these early
Roentgen completed his electrolysis. signaling techniques were
research in just eight weeks and relatively slow and unreliable. In
1837: America. Samuel Finley
announced his discovery to the the early 1820s, scientists like
Breese Morse exhibits an
world in 1896. The implications Faraday and Ampere began
electric telegraph.
of his work were immediately their investigations into
recognized, and some hospitals 1837: England. Sir Charles electromagnetics, little
began to use X-rays within a Wheatstone and Sir suspecting that their work would
few weeks of hearing the news William Fothergill Cooke pave the way for much faster
of his discovery. Roentgen went patent the 5-needle elec- and more reliable
on to win a Nobel Prize in tric telegraph. communications systems in the
future.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH needles. This system made the TIMELINES
news in 1845 when it was used
In 1837, the British physicist to transmit a message about a 1842: England. Joseph Henry dis-
and Inventor Sir Charles murderer who had been seen covers that an electrical
Wheatstone teamed with his leaving Slough, leading to his spark between two conduc-
friend Sir William Fothergill arrest at Paddington. tors is able to induce mag-
Cooke to invent the first British netism in needles – this ef-
electric telegraph (in 1829, These systems (especially fect is detected at a distance
Wheatstone had invented the the two-needle version) became of 30 meters.
concertina, so presumably he very popular in railway signaling
apparatus, and in fact they can 1842: Scotland. Alexander Bain
didn’t have too many friends demonstrates first elec-
left). still be found in use to this day
in remote parts of the globe. tromechanical means to cap-
Their first instrument used ture, transmit, and reproduce
five wires to control five needles In the same year that an image.
at the receiver, each of which Wheatstone and Cooke were
inventing their original five- 1843: England. Augusta Ada
could be set to one of two Lovelace publishes her notes
needle system, the American
inventor Samuel Finley Breese explaining the concept of a
Morse was developing his computer.
version of a telegraph. Morse’s 1843: England. Sir Charles Wheat-
system was based on a pattern stone and Sir William
of “dots” and “dashes” which he Fothergill Cooke patent the
called Morse Code. This system 2-needle electric telegraph.
enabled the transmission of a 1844: America. Morse Telegraph
message over a single wire. connects Washington and
The Morse Telegraph was Baltimore.
eventually adopted as the
worldwide standard, because it 1845: England. Michael Faraday
was easier to construct and discovers the rotation of po-
more reliable than the British larized light by magnetism.
versions. 1845: England. The electronic tele-
The first telegraph cable graph is first used to help
connecting England and France apprehend a criminal.
was laid across the English 1845: England/France. First tele-
Channel in 1845. This was graph cable is laid across the
followed in 1858 by the first English Channel.
transatlantic cable linking
The five-needle telegraph of Valentia, Ireland and Trinity 1846: Germany. Gustav Kirchhoff
defines Kirchoff’s laws of
Cooke and Wheatstone. Bay, Newfoundland. On the
16th of August 1858, Queen electrical networks.
positions. The letters of the Victoria exchanged messages 1847: England. Geoge Boole pub-
alphabet were laid out using a with President Buchanan in lishes his first ideas on sym-
matrix arrangement, and a pair America. Four days later, bolic logic.
of needles could be used to Cunard agents in New York sent 1850: England. Francis Galton in-
point to a specific letter. Thus, the first commercial message to vents teletype printer.
messages were sent by report a collision between two
controlling pairs of needles in steamships: the Arabia and the 1850: The paper bag is invented.
sequence. Europa. 1852: France. Jean Foucault in-
This five-needle system Unfortunately, no one at vents the first gyroscope.
was replaced in 1843 with a that time really understood the 1853: Scotland/Ireland. Sir Charles
two-needle device, which extreme conditions that existed Tilston Bright laid the first
required only three wires. In this at the bottom of the Atlantic deepwater cable between
case, letters of the alphabet Ocean. The cable’s insulation Scotland and Ireland.
were identified by counting the quickly degraded and messages
number of deflections of the 1854: Crimea. Telegraph used in
became unintelligible only one
Crimean War.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
1855: Germany. Heinrich
Geissler invents a power-
ful vacuum pump.
1855: England. James Clerk
Maxwell explains Fara-
day’s lines of force using
mathematics.
1858: Atlantic. First transatlantic
telegraph cable is laid
(and later fails).
1858: England. Queen Victoria
exchanges transatlantic
telegraph messages with
President Buchanan in
America. Morse code receiver. When a message was to be received, the
1858: America. Cunard agents weight (bottom left) was released turning the mechanism and
in New York send first feeding a strip of paper from a reel (Z). Electrical telegraph sig-
commercial telegraph nals coming in from wires (a and b) energized electromagnets
message to report a colli- (H), which pulled down the iron or steel plate above them. By
sion between two steam means of a pivoted lever, this raised the print head (H) which
ships. placed indentations in the paper strip which could then be read.
1859: Germany. Hittorf and Courtesy of the Science Photo Library.
Plucker invent the cath-
ode ray tube (CRT).
called Alexander Bain came up
1865: Ireland – Newfoundland. with a rather ingenious idea.
TIMELINES
Atlantic cable links Valen- 1872: First simultaneous trans-
tia (Ireland) and Trinity Bain cut an image he wished
to transmit out of a thin sheet of mission from both ends of
Bay (Newfoundland). a telegraph wire.
tin, which he then placed on a
1865: England. James Clerk moving base. Above the bae was 1873: England. James Clerk
Maxwell predicts the exis- a swinging pendulum formed Maxwell describes the
tence of electromagnetic from a conducting wire with a electromagnetic nature of
waves that travel in the pointed metal weight on the end. light and publishes his the-
same way as light. As the base moved slowly under ory of radio waves.
1866: Ireland/USA. First perma- the pendulum, the swinging 1874: America. Alexander Gra-
nent transatlantic tele- weight periodically made contact ham Bell conceives the
graph cable is laid. with the metal image, thereby idea of the telephone.
completing an electrical circuit.
month after it was laid. In fact, it Thus, the light and dark areas of 1875: America. Edison invents
was almost a decade until the the image (represented by the the mimeograph.
first permanent transatlantic link presence and absence of the 1875: England. James Clerk
– all 1,852 nautical miles of it – metal sheet) were converted into Maxwell states that atoms
was completed on 27 July 1866. an electrical signal. must have a structure.
This signal was then used to 1876: America. 10th March. Intel-
FAXING CIRCA 1842! control a relay moving in time ligible human speech heard
The first occurrence of with the pendulum. In turn, the over Alexander Graham
electromechanical techniques relay pressed a pencil down onto Bell’s telephone for the first
being used to capture, transmit, a piece of paper, which was time.
and reproduce an image mounted on another base moving
1876: America. Alexander Gra-
occurred in 1842, only five in time with the first one. Thus,
ham Bell patents the tele-
years after Queen Victoria has the original image could be
phone.
ascended to the throne of transmitted and reproduced as a
pencil drawing. 1876: America. Thomas Alva Edi-
England, when a Scotsman
son sets up world’s first in-
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
dustrial laboratory at Menlo packed with weird and wonderful image the next hole began its
Park, New Jersey. inventions. For example, Denis trek. Since the holes were
1877: America. Thomas Watson Redmond of Dublin, Ireland sent arranged in a spiral formation
devised a “thumper” to a letter to the English Mechanic each hole traversed a different
alert users to incoming and World Science publication in slice, or line, across the image.
telephone calls. 1878. In his letter, Redmond At the other end of the
described creating an array of process was a brilliant lamp and
1877: America. First commercial selenium photocells, each of
telephone service went into a second spinning Nipkow Disk.
which was used to control a The electrical signal coming out
operation. corresponding platinum wire. As of the phototube was used to
1878: America. First public long- the intensity of light on a modulate the lamp, which was
distance telephone line be- particular photocell increased, it projected onto the second disk.
tween Boston and Provi- caused more current to flow The modulated light passed
dence becomes opera- through its associated platinum through the holes in the second
tional. wire, which therefore glowed disk to construct a line-by-line
more brightly. display on a screen.
1878: England. Sir Joseph Wil-
son Swan demonstrates a Although it only contained Although the resulting
true incandescent light around 10 x 10 elements, this image was constructed as a
bulb. device could apparently represent series of lines, the speed of the
moving silhouettes, which was disk combined with persistence
1878: England. William Crookes
pretty amazing for the time. In of vision meant that an observer
invents his version of a
fact Redmond’s invention is saw a reasonable (albeit low
cathode ray tube –
conceptually very similar to resolution) facsimile of the
Crookes’ Tube.
today’s semiconductor diode original picture. Although his
1878: Ireland. Denis Redmond array cameras and liquid-crystal system could only be used to
demonstrates capturing an computer screens (plus it had the transmit static images, Nipkow’s
image using selenium pho- advantage that you could use it to technique was conceptually
tocells. toast bread). similar to modern-day
1879: America. Thomas Alva Edi- television.
son invents an incandes- VICTORIAN TV?
cent light bulb (a year after
The German inventor Paul THE TELEPHONE
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan in
England). Gottleib Nipkow proposed a novel At the age of 14, the
technique for scanning, Scottish inventor Alexander
1879: England. William Crookes transmitting and reproducing Graham Bell was tremendously
postulates that cathode pictures in 1884. Nipkow’s excited by a demonstration of a
rays may be negatively technique was based on the use “speaking machine” created by
charged particles. of flat circular disks containing Sir Charles Wheatstone. Bell
1880: America. Alexander Gra- holes punched in a spiral and his older brother
ham Bell patents an optical formation. subsequently built their own
telephone system, the Pho- The way this worked was that device that emulated the human
tophone. a light was used to project an mouth, throat, tongue, and
image onto a spinning Nipkow bellow-like lungs, and used it to
Bain had essentially created Disk. As the outermost hole on produce human-like sounds.
the precursor to the modern Fax the disk traversed the image, the Some time later, the
(facsimile) machine, but his light passed through the hole to German physicist Hermann von
device never really caught on, hit a light-sensitive phototube. Helmholtz wrote a thesis stating
because creating the image to The intensity of the light was that vowel sounds could be
be transmitted typically took modified by the light and dark produced by combining the
longer than traveling to the areas in the image, thereby effects of electrical tuning forks
intended recipient and drawing modulating the electrical signal and resonators. Bell heard
it out by hand! coming out of the phototube. about this paper, but due to the
The holes were arranged fact that he couldn’t read
OPTICAL TOASTERS! such that as soon as the German, he mistakenly
The 19th century was jam- outermost hole had exited the believed that Helmholtz was
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
1894: Italy. Guglielmo Marconi Bell’s interest in the spoken
TIMELINES invents wireless telegra- word continued, stimulated by the
1880: France. Edouard Eugene phy. fact that his mother was deaf.
Desire Branly invents the 1895: America. Dial telephones The family emigrated to Canada
Branly Coherer. in 1870, and a year later Bell
go into Milwaukee’s city
1880: France. Pierre and Jacques hall. began teaching at a school for the
Curie discover piezoelec- deaf in Boston, USA. Bell first
1895: Germany. Wilhelm Konrad conceived the idea of the
tricity.
Roentgen discovers X-rays. telephone in 1874 – the same
1883: America. William Hammer year that he met Thomas Watson
1895: Russia. Alexander Popov
and Thomas Alva Edison – a young electrician who was to
(also Popoff) constructs a
discover the “Edison Ef- become Bell’s long-time
receiver for natural electri-
fect”. assistant.
cal waves and tries to
1884: Germany. Paul Gottleib detectthunderstorms.
Nipkow uses spinning disks 1897: England. Guglielmo Mar- SAVED BY THE BELL
to scan/transmit and repro-
coni transmits a Morse Bell filed a patent application
duce images.
Code message “let it be so” for the telephone on the 14th
1887: England. J. J. Thomson across the Bristol Channel. February 1876 (just a few hours
discovers the electron. 1897: England. Marconi estab- before another inventor called
1887: England. William Crookes lishes the first Marconi- Elisha Gray attempted to file a
demonstrates that cathode station at The Needles (Isle sort of pre-patent known as a
rays travel in straight lines. of Wight, England), send- caveat for a similar device). On
1887: Germany. Heinrich Hertz ing a signal to the English the 10th of March, 1876,
demonstrates the transmis- coast over 22km. intelligible human speech was
sion/reception and reflec- heard over the telephone for the
tion of radio waves. saying it would be possible to first time when Bell spilt some
transmit sounds as electrical acid and Watson heard him
1888: America. First coin- calling over their experimental
signals through a wire. This was
operated public telephone apparatus saying “Mr Watson –
to lead to what Bell would later
invented. come here – I need you!”
describe as a “very valuable
1889: America. Almon Brown blunder”. It is interesting to note that
Strowger invents the first
automatic telephone ex-
change.
1890: America. Census is per-
formed using Herman Hol-
lerith’s punched cards and
automatic tabulating ma-
chines.
1892: America. First automatic
telephone switchboard
comes into service.
1894: England. Oliver Joseph
Lodge repeats the tests of
Heinrich Hertz with a modi-
fied Branly Coherer.
1894: Germany. Heinrich Hertz Historical artwork of a man using a Bell telephone. In this origi-
discovers that radio waves nal telephone system, the speaker and receiver were identical.
travel at the speed of light This telephone was invented by Alexander graham Bell (1847-
and can be refracted and 1922) who filed the patent on 14 February 1876. Courtesy of the
polarized. Science Photo Library.
Guglielmo Marconi and his radio equipment, 1896.
Courtesy of Marconi PLC.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
Bell’s original telephone had no of age without knowing for sure Coherer by adding a device that
signaling device to let the user that it was possible to transmit shook the fillings loose between
know when there was an and receive radio waves over spark receptions. Lodge’s
incoming call. In June 1877, large distances. device became a standard
Watson devised a “thumper” The idea that the radio apparatus in early wireless
that would strike the diaphragm waves theorized by Maxwell telegraphy. Unfortunately, after
of the receiving telephone box and demonstrated by Hertz making his contribution to the
to make a tapping sound. could be used for long distance world as we know it, Lodge
The first commercial communication intrigued many spent the rest of his life
telephone service went into physicists, scientists and undertaking psychic research
operation in 1877. This was inventors. and attempting to communicate
followed by the first long- with the dead (“Hello Oliver, are
In 1880, a professor of you there?”).
distance line for public use Physics called Edouard Eugene
between Boston and Providence Desire Branly at the Catholic
in 1878. (In 1880 Bell patented University of Paris created the MARCONI
an optical telephone system, Branly Coherer. This was based In reality, no one person
which he called the on his discovery that loose zinc “invented” wireless
Photophone. However, his early and silver filings would cling communications as we know
telephone proved to be much together when exposed to even them today. It is true that for
more practical, and optical a distant spark transmission more than 100 years Guglielmo
communication systems would field. By clinging together, the Marconi has been called the
have to wait for another filings provided a path that “inventor of radio”. Marconi was
hundred years.) exhibited increased certainly a genius, but it’s also
conductivity, and this effect fair to say that he built on the
WIRELESS TELEGRAPH could be used to detect the ideas and inventions of others
presence of a transmission. (as did others).
In 1865, the brilliant British
Based on this work, the French
physicist James Clerk Maxwell, For example, the Russian
now claim that Branly invented
a professor at Cambridge professor called Alexander
the wireless telegraph.
University, predicted the Popov (also spelled “Popoff”)
existence of electromagnetic In 1894, Oliver Joseph conceived the idea of using the
waves that traveled in the same Lodge, who held the chair in Branly Coherer to pick up static
way as light. The first person to Physics at the University or atmospheric electricity,
actually transmit and receive College in Liverpool, increased thereby allowing him to detect
these “radio waves” in a the usefulness of the Branly approaching thunderstorms (the
laboratory environment was
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, a
professor of physics at
Karlsruhe Polytechnic in
Germany.
Between 1885 and 1889,
Hertz used the energy stored in
large capacitors to create
electric sparks, which in turn
produced electromagnetic
waves. He then received these
waves using an aerial formed
from a loop of wire with a small
gap between the ends. When a
large spark was generated by
the transmitter, a smaller spark
could be observed jumping
across the gap at the receiver.
Unfortunately, Hertz died of Guglielmo Marconi and his radio equipmenty, 1896.
a brain tumor at only 36 years Courtesy Marconi PLC.
6SHFLDO )HDWXUH
government showed no interest
TIMELINES in Marconi’s work, so his mother
1897: England. Cavandish Labs, (Annie Jameson of the well-
Cambridge, J. J. Thomson known Irish Whisky family)
uses deflection of cathode brought him to London, where
rays to measure electron their influential relatives
charge to mass ratio. financed his experiments and
1897: Germany. Braun improves brought him into contact with
Crookes’ tube with fluores- people who could help further
cence. his ambitions.
1898: 20 July. First newspaper During the early years,
message concerning the Marconi progressively improved
results of a sailing contest on the distances he could
sent from a ship to the achieve with his equipment. In
Daily Express in England. 1897 he managed to send the
Morse Code message “let it be
1898: 3 June. First paid wireless so” 8 7 miles across the Bristol
¬
telegram sent from The Channel. And in 1899, the East

Needles (Isle of Wight/Eng- Goodwin lightship used one of
land). Marconi’s wireless telegraphs to
1899: England. Cavandish Labs, request assistance after it had
Cambridge, J. J. Thomson been rammed in dense fog by
measures the charge and the steam ship M.F. Matthews.
mass of the electron. This was the first recorded use
1899: First loudspeaker is in- of a wireless telegraph to save
vented. lives.
1899: England. First use of a
wireless telegraph message to NEXT MONTH
save lives (transmitted from the
East Goodwin lightship). In Part 2 of this series we’ll
commence by considering
precursor to the lightning computing prior to 1900,
detection systems we use followed by the development of
today). Furthermore, Popov fundamental electronics in the
th
reported sending and receiving 20 century, including the
a wireless signal across a invention of the vacuum tube,
distance of 600 yards in 1895. the transistor, and much, much
Based on this work, the more.
Russians now claim that Popov
invented the wireless telegraph. Acknowledgements
As an electrician in Italy, We express our special thanks to IBM
Marconi first became interested Archives for their supplying illustrations
in electromagnetic radiation for this article. We also thank the Science
Photo Library and Marconi PLC for their
after reading about Hertz’s illustrations.
experiments and Popov’s ideas
for storm detection. Marconi
fully appreciated the
possibilities of using radio
waves as a means of signaling
over large distances, and he
patented a successful system of
radio telegraphy while only 22
years of age.
Sad to relate the Italian
ROBERT PENFOLD second, which is fast enough for parent from the circuit that the
A 12-BIT SERIAL A/D CON- most applications. However, in AD7896AN enables a minimal-
order to achieve this rate in ist approach to be taken. In fact,
practice an assembly language the only discrete component re-
A previous Interface article quired is supply decoupling ca-
routine would probably have to
covered interfacing a serial pacitor C1. Potentiometer VR1
be used to control and read the
analog-to-digital converter to a is simply there for test pur-
converter.
PC parallel port, but the original poses, and it enables a variable
design provided only eight-bit 0V to 5V signal to be applied to
resolution. Things move on, and MINIMALIST CIRCUIT the input at pin 1 of IC1.
chips that provide higher resolu- Incidentally, the input volt-
tions are available. The circuit diagram for the
12-bit Serial A/D Converter ap- age range of the chip is from
The chip used in the con- pears in Fig.1, and the pin func- supply rail to supply rail. There
verter featured here is the tions for the 8-pin DIL version are separate analog and digital
AD7896AN successive approxi- are shown in Fig.2. It will be ap- ground terminals at pin 3 and
mation converter, which pro-
vides 12-bit resolution (4096 Fig.1. The com-
levels). It requires four lines plete circuit dia-
plus a ground connection to in- gram for the 12-
terface to the PC, and the hand- bit Serial A/D
shake lines of a PC printer port
Converter.
can provide these.
ONE AT A TIME
It should perhaps be ex-
plained that with a serial con-
verter the data is read one bit at
a time, which gives a saving of
some 11 connecting wires with
a 12-bit converter. Some extra
lines are needed to control the
chip and the flow of data, but
overall there are still far less
inputs and outputs used than
there are bits of data.
The drawback of the serial
approach is that it significantly
complicates the software side of
things. What would take one or
two lines of code with a parallel
converter can take dozens with Fig.2. Pinout details and functions for the 8-pin version of the
a serial type. Reading a serial AD7896 12-bit A/D Converter.
chip is also slower, although the
maximum rate at which conver- Fig.3. Details of the five connec-
sions can be taken is likely to be tions to the Printer Port. Connec-
limited by the converter itself
tions to the port are via a male 25-
rather than the speed at which
the data can be transferred. way D-type connector
The AD7896AN can handle
up to 100,000 conversions per
,QWHU)$&(
Port[Prn3] := 0;
Listing 1:Converter Program Port[Prn3] := 1;
Port[Prn3] := 0;
Port[Prn3] := 1;
Reading := 0;
unit Adconv; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
If Dta = 32 Then Reading := 2048;
interface Port[Prn3] := 0;
Port[Prn3] := 1;
uses Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
SysUtils, WinTypes, WinProcs, Messages, If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 1024);
Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms, Dialogs, Port[Prn3] := 0;
ExtCtrls, StdCtrls; Port[Prn3] := 1;
Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
type If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 512);
TForm1 = class(TForm) Port[Prn3] := 0;
Panel1: TPanel; Port[Prn3] := 1;
Timer1: TTimer; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
Button1: TButton; If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 256);
Button2: TButton; Port[Prn3] := 0;
procedure Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject); Port[Prn3] := 1;
procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject); Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
procedure Button2Click(Sender: TObject); If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 128);
private Port[Prn3] := 0;
{ Private declarations } Port[Prn3] := 1;
public Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
{ Public declarations } If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 64);
end; Port[Prn3] := 0;
Port[Prn3] := 1;
var Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
Form1: TForm1; If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 32);
Prn1: Word; Port[Prn3] := 0;
Prn2: Word; Port[Prn3] := 1;
Prn3: Word; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
Reading: Word; If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 16);
Dta: Byte; Port[Prn3] := 0;
Busy: Byte; Port[Prn3] := 1;
S: String; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 8);
implementation Port[Prn3] := 0;
Port[Prn3] := 1;
{ $R *.DFM} Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 4);
procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject); Port[Prn3] := 0;
begin Port[Prn3] := 1;
Prn1 := 632; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
Prn2 := 633; If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 2);
Prn3 := 634; Port[Prn3] := 0;
Port[Prn3] := 1; Port[Prn3] := 1;
Port[Prn3] := 3; Dta := Port[Prn2] AND 32;
Port[Prn3] := 1; If Dta = 32 Then Reading := (Reading + 1);
Repeat Str(Reading, S);
Busy := Port[Prn2] AND 16; Panel1.Caption := S;
Until Busy = 0; end;
,QWHU)$&(
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); look something like Fig.4 when
begin run.
Timer1.Enabled := False; The main procedure starts by
end; setting variables Prn1, Prn2, and
Prn3 at the addresses of printer
procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject); port two. (Values of 888, 889, and
begin 890 will normally be required here
Timer1.Enabled := True; if the interface is used with printer
end; port one.) The next three lines
generate the start conversion
end. pulse on the ALF output, and a
Repeat...Until loop then monitors
pin 6 respectively, but in normal
the Busy line and loops the pro-
use these are both connected to
gram until it has gone low.
the 0V supply rail. The power
consumption of the AD7896AN After the unwanted leading
is very low at only about 9mW. zeros have been clocked out the
program starts to clock out and
Fig.4. The converter program in read data from the converter. The
MAKING A START action. The maximum value read from the port is stored
In order to take a reading reading is 4095. in variable Dta, and this value is
from the device, a low pulse is augmented by the appropriate
slightly by having four leading amount when a bit is high. For
first applied to the Start Conver-
zeros that must be clocked out example, if the most significant
sion input (pin 7). This activates
before the 12 bits of data are bit is high, Dta is augmented by
the built-in track-and-hold cir-
output. 2048. The value is left unaltered
cuit, and then starts the conver-
sion process. In the circuit diagram of if a bit is at zero. Eventually all 12
Fig.1 the Start Conversion and bits have been read in, and the
Data must not be read until
Serial Clock inputs are respec- final value in Dta is then dis-
the conversion has been com-
tively controlled by the Auto played on the panel. The stop
pleted, and one way of handling
Line Feed (ALF) and Strobe and start buttons disable and en-
this is to use a timing loop to
handshake outputs. The Busy able the conversion process by
provide a suitable hold-off. Al-
output is monitored using the simply switching the timer com-
ternatively, the Busy output at
Select In handshake input, and ponent on and off.
pin 8 goes high during the con-
version process. This output data is read via the Paper Out A 12-bit resolution gives re-
can be monitored, with a read- handshake input. The interface turned values in the range 0 to
ing being taken once the Busy connects to the printer port by 4095, and gives much better res-
output has returned to the low way of a male 25-way D-type olution than an 8-bit converter
state. connector, and connection de- with its range of 0 to 255. In nor-
tails for this are provided in mal digital display terms it pro-
The data appears on pin 5, Fig.3. vides something between three
and it is clocked out by way of
and half and four digit resolution.
pin 4. New bits of data are out-
put on pin 5 on the falling edge SOFTWARE This converter should give
of the clock signal at pin 4. The good results in applications such
The example program pro- as accurate temperature and volt-
reading process is therefore a vided in Listing 1 is for Delphi 1,
matter of generating a clock age measurement, and future In-
and it requires a form equipped terface articles will feature some
pulse on pin 4, reading the state with a panel to display readings,
of pin 5, generating another practical designs based on the
two buttons that are used to AD7896AN chip.
clock pulse, reading pin 5 again, stop and start the converter,
and so on until all 12 bits have and a timer that controls the
been read. A software routine is rate at which readings are
used to recombine the individ- taken. With a large font se-
ual bits of data into a 12-bit lected for the panel’s caption,
value. Matters are complicated the finished program should
debounce the switch, which is
by ALAN WINSTANLEY and IAN BELL easiest if you have a
changeover switch as it can be
Our team of “surgeons” continue their opamp accomplished using an SR flip-
extravaganza, explaining more of the terminology flop (or the S and R inputs of
used by manufacturers to describe the characteristics another D-type). See Fig.1b or
of operational amplifiers. We look at CMOS refer to Teach-In ’98, Part 7,
May 1998, page 376, for more
transmission gates too. on switch debounce. (This
By “bistable switch” we refers to the printed version of
BISTABLE EPE, Photostats are available,
assume you mean something
SWITCHES that will alternately activate and Ed.)
Before we continue with our deactivate an electronic bypass The output of the T-type
in-depth look at opamps, first a each time you press the pedal flip-flop could certainly be used
question from N. J. How in switch. Whilst you could use a to control a 4016 or 4066-type
Malaysia about a guitar suitable mechanical switch to bilateral switch (also called a
distortion pedal: directly bypass the distortion transmission gate). Each gate is
circuit – this would be an easy effectively a CMOS “switch”
“I need to build a bistable
solution, and is a common which can be closed using an
switch, which can be used as a
approach in effects pedals – it external Enable signal: taking
bypass switch for my home may prove more noisy and less the Enable pin high will close
made guitar distortion pedal. My reliable than an electronic the switch (On condition), see
question is, can I use a T-type solution. Fig.2a. When the control line is
flip-flop to control a 4066 CMOS
You are correct to suggest taken low, the transmission gate
transmission gate and provide adopts its Off condition. Being
clean switching? Does the 4066 that a T-type flip-flop can be
used to obtain bistable (push- bidirectional, transmission gates
“on” resistance depend on the will switch both DC and AC
control voltage or perhaps the on/push-off) control action for a
current? logic signal from a switch. For
this the switch must be a IN/OUT IN/OUT
I also have some noise momentary action rather than a
coming out from my distortion mechanical latching action. The Y Z
effect. I am using a 2N3904 T-type flip-flop could be
transistor to amplify the signal implemented using a D-type
and also to produce the desired with its ~Q (inverted) output
effect. Can I reduce the noise connected to its D input (see
by changing this part? If I can, Fig. 1a), with the pushswitch E
what transistor should I use?” generating the clock pulse. ENABLE
You would need to Fig.2a. A single transmission
+VDD
gate has a typical “On” resis-
D Q tance of 120 ohms.
S
CONTROL R1 R2
100k 100k
DEBOUNCE Q
(S1)
R
TO D-TYPE 14 13 12 11 10 9 8
FLIP-FLOP
Fig.1a. A toggle-type (T- CONTROL

S VDD E0 E3 Y3 Z3 Z2 Y2
type) flip-flop can be con- (S1) HEF4066B

R
structed from a D-type flip- Y0 Z0 Z1 Y1 E1 E2 VSS
flop. S1 can be a center-off, VSS (0V)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
biased switch, or a pair of Fig.1b. A debounce circuit to
momentary-action push- toggle a T-type latch using a Fig.2b. Pinout details for a
switches, debounced. mechanical switch. quad bilateral switch. IC
&LUFXLW 6XUJHU\
signals. Each 14-pin 4016 or ohms is more typical for basic It is
4066 package contains four switches, and more complex possible that the transistor is the
such switches. devices often have larger on source of the noise, but it may
resistances. Note that the pin- be due to the circuit design, or
Data sheets on typical
compatible 4016 has a higher the individual transistor, rather
devices (e.g. the HEF4066B)
on resistance than the 4066. than a general property of the
are available from the Philips
2N3904. Note that the 2N3904
Semiconductors web site at In addition to on resistance,
(an npn bipolar junction
www- the many parameters that might
transistor) is actually optimized
eu3.semiconductors.com/ be of interest to the user of
for switching, rather than audio
acrobat/datasheets analogue switches include
applications, so one may find a
signal range, on resistance
The pinout details are better device, however a
matching and cross-talk of
shown in Fig.2b. These devices distortion pedal is not a
multiple switches, leakage
have many other uses, even for conventional audio application –
current, noise, distortion,
switching audio channels noise- great care is usually taken avoid
bandwidth, charge injection and
free or for selecting an oscillator it! You can get transistors that
logic compatibility of the control
timing resistor using a logic are targeted at low-noise audio
inputs. Different devices may
circuit. applications, for example
provide the best performance in
The on resistance of a 4066 BC184L and BC549 (or e.g. the
one or more of these
depends on supply voltage, 2N5210 according to Towers’
categories.
input voltage and temperature. International Transistor
You also get a variety of Selector). IMB
If used correctly the control
switch configurations to choose
voltage should not have a large
from, from basic s.p.s.t./s.p.d.t
effect as it connects to a NOT
gate inside the chip, rather than
(single pole single throw / single OPAMPS
pole double throw) switches with CONTINUED
directly to the MOS transistors.
either normally open or closed
The internal circuitry has to “contacts” to multiplexers and Following on from our item
provide a complementary crosspoint switches. The RS in the Dec. ’99 and Jan. 2000
control signal for the two Components catalog (also see issues, we have more space
complementary MOS transistors http://rswww.com), for this month to describe further
in the analog switch, so you do example, lists over 60 analog operating characteristics of
not get to control their gate switch and multiplexer ICs, so opamps. You will often see the
voltages directly. As with all there are plenty to choose from. following expressions used in
logic, the control input must be Prices vary from a couple of UK data sheets or catalogues and
driven with the correct voltage Pounds for a basic switch to 20 they can be used to distinguish
levels for proper operation. The UK Pounds for a high between different opamps, so
internal circuitry for both performance multiplexer. that the most appropriate device
devices is published in the can be selected.
Philips data sheets.
A typical value for the MAKING A NOISE Supply Current Used and
4066’s on resistance at a supply Returning to the reader’s Maximum Supply Current –
of 10V, at room temperature, second query, the “noise” The current into +VCC or +VDD
and with a full logic-level control problem is difficult to diagnose supply terminal under specified
voltage would be 120 ohms without a lot more information. conditions.
(typically varying from 100 to All electronic components As with power dissipation,
120 ohms with input voltage). generate noise, which depends you need to distinguish between
There are a large number of on factors such as temperature, figures for typical, maximum
other analogue switch ICs which applied voltages and and quiescent (no signal)
will give better performance operational modes (for example conditions. Supply current is
than the 4066, but for a higher diodes are noisy in reverse important in low power
price than the 40p (UK pence) breakdown). Sometimes, applications (e.g. battery
you might pay for a 4066. individual devices may be powered circuits).
On resistances as low as 10 excessively noisy due to the Again, as with power
ohms are available, but 20 to 90 presence of defects. dissipation, low operational
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supply current is often quoted @?G5B CE@@<I C<5G B1D5
as the selling point of <9=9D54 <9=9D54
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micropower opamps – typical E>49CD?BD54 =1H
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values are tens of microamps ?ED@ED CG9>7
(uA) or less, compared with F?<DC "
hundreds of microamps to
milliamps for normal opamps. !
Some low-power devices have

a shutdown control that stops
operation and reduces supply
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current to very low levels. <?7 6B5AE5>3I 8j
Fig.3. Graph showing the maximum undistorted peak-to-peak

Output Short Circuit Duration
– The length of time the output output amplitude for a sinewave from a typical general pur-
can be shorted to ground (0V), pose opamp operating on a 15V supply (actual figures would
or the supplies, without causing depend on the device and supply voltage used). Note the rela-
damage to the opamp. tively low frequency at which maximum output can be pro-
For many devices this is duced. Higher speed opamps would give better
infinity due to the inclusion of performance in this respect.
short circuit protection circuitry
inside the opamp.
The gain specified on data it just has to be large! This
Maximum Peak-to-Peak sheets is for low frequency means that the fall in gain of the
Output Swing – The maximum operation and opamp gain is opamp with frequency
peak-to-peak output voltage deliberately made to fall as mentioned above does not
that can be obtained without frequency increases, in order to affect the circuit until the very
clipping the waveform due to prevent instability. As we noted high frequencies at which the
saturation. previously, the very high gain opamp’s gain reduces.
means that the differential input
For many devices this is voltage in normal operation is Common Mode Rejection
very close to the power supply very small (see Fig.3 in Dec. ’99 Ratio (CMRR) – This is the
voltages. This only applies at Circuit Surgery). ability to reject signals common
low frequencies, where the to both inputs (remember that
maximum undistorted output Gain may be specified as a
simple number e.g. 100,000, as the opamp is a differential
signal is said to be power- amplifier, so it should ignore
supply limited, see Fig. 3. At a ratio of voltages e.g. 100V/
mV, or in decibels, e.g. 100dB signals which are the same on
higher frequencies the opamp both inputs).
can still produce these voltages, (in these three examples the
but distortion occurs as it cannot gain is the same). The gain in Signals which are the same
change the output fast enough decibels is found by taking the on both inputs are called
(see Slew Rate later). gain as a number, taking the common-mode signals – the
logarithm and multiplying by 20, common mode input voltage
e.g. 100dB = 20log(100,000). (CMV) is the average of the two
SIGNAL HANDLING Although in some cases input voltages, i.e. (V2 + V1)/2.
Large Signal Gain (A) or opamps with particularly high Ideally, a change in CMV should
Open Loop Voltage Gain – gains may be preferable, the not affect the output, but in
precise value of the gain for practice it does (the ratio of
This is ideally infinite. In real
individual opamps of a given output and common mode input
discrete opamps it typically
type does not usually matter. is called common mode gain,
ranges from tens of thousands
to millions. For opamps within This is because opamps are ACM).
larger integrated circuits lower often used with negative CMRR affects gain
gain opamps may be used feedback in circuits, in which accuracy in some configurations
where they are suitable and the gain of the circuit depends and determines the ability of the
provide savings over using on the external components and opamp to ignore noise common
higher performance circuits. not on the gain of the opamp – to both inputs. This is
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particularly important in maximum peak-to-peak parallel with resistance.
“instrumentation” applications, undistorted output for any type of Sometimes the capacitance is
where very small differential waveform, including pure sine not considered and only
signals from sensors must be waves. At lower frequencies the resistance is quoted. Input
amplified in the presence of maximum undistorted output is capacitances may also be
noise. Special instrumentation usually determined by the power quoted separately. Field effect
amplifier chips are available for supply voltage, but as frequency transistor (FET)-input opamps
this purpose. CMMR is increases the opamp’s output have a particularly high input
12
measured in dB, 80dB to 100dB cannot move fast enough to resistance (e.g. 10 ohms).
is fairly typical, but lower and “follow the shape” of large Input impedance, however,
higher values occur. amplitude waveforms (see Fig. is often not the main concern as
3). the effective input impedance is
Unity Gain Bandwidth (fu) or If the required peak output increased by the use of
Gain Bandwidth Product voltage is Vm and the slew rate is negative feedback amplifier
(GBW) – The range of S (in volts per second) the configurations. It is therefore
frequencies for which open loop maximum frequency sinewave bias currents which are often
gain is greater than one. that can be output without more important.
Typical values for general- distortion is:
purpose devices are in the
range of tens of kilohertz to a
f = S / (2 x Pi x Vm) OFFSETS
few megahertz, but may be For example for 2V/us and Input Offset Voltage (VIO) –
higher – into the gigahertz 15V this is 21kHz, not a Ideally with a differential input
range for special high particularly high frequency. In this of zero the opamp’s output
frequency/high speed devices. respect low slew rate can be the should be zero, but in real
significant limiting factor with opamps there will typically be a
Slew Rate – Maximum rate of some well-known general- non-zero output.
change of output (closed loop). purpose opamps such as the 741.
B"
Slew rates are often quoted
in volts per microsecond. For Supply Voltage Rejection Ratio B!
example, a value of 2V/us (or power supply sensitivity) – F9>
would mean that the time that The ability to prevent changes in
93!
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the opamp’s output took to supply voltage from causing
change from 0V to 5V due to a changes in the output voltage. FB!
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step change at the inputs would Changes in supply current
be 2 5us.
¬ due to activities of loads or other 14:ECD D?
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Typical slew rates for parts of the circuit cause changes ?66C5D
general-purpose devices are in supply voltage (the supply and F5 CE@@<I
from a few hundred millivolts to its wiring have non-zero Fig.4. Typical Offset Null
a few volts per microsecond, resistance). This is measured in circuit.
but much faster devices are decibels and defined in a similar
available with slew rates of way to CMRR. The offset voltage is
hundreds or thousands of volts defined as the DC voltage
per microsecond. A fast device Input Resistance/Impedance – which must be supplied
with a slew rate of 1200V/us Common-Mode Input Impedance between the inputs to force the
could change its output from 0V is the effective impedance from quiescent (zero input voltage)
either input terminal to ground open-loop (no feedback
to 5V in 4 2ns.
¬
and is ideally infinite. Differential resistors) output voltage to zero.

The easiest way to think Input Impedance is apparent This can be regarded as DC
about slew rate is in terms of impedance between the inputs noise in any opamp circuit
the response time to step (also ideally infinite). processing DC signals (as many
change, as illustrated by the opamp circuits do).
above examples. However, The input impedances will
take the form of capacitance in The offset cannot be
slew rate also determines the
B"
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distinguished from the wanted into the two inputs with output at
signal and is processed by the B! zero volts, i.e. (IB1 – IB2) where
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circuit. The offset is typically 92! IB1 and IB2 are the input currents
93!
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small, but will be amplified by for the two inputs (Fig.5).
the circuit and may cause 92" Ideally these currents will be
significant problems. In opamp B#
equal, but in practice they are
applications in which only AC not, so IIO will be non-zero. The
signals are of interest offsets input currents have to flow
are less likely to be a problem through the external circuitry
as they simply cause a shift in Fig.5. Resistor R3 balances
and will cause offsets, even if
operating point. the resistance seen by the the impedances connected to
Some opamps have offset two bias currents in order to the two inputs are equal.
adjustment circuits that allow an reduce the offset caused by
external trimmer potentiometer, voltage drops due to the bias Temperature Coefficient of
connected to the appropriate currents flowing in the exter- Input Offset Current –
pins, to be used to set the nal components. Specifies how IIO changes with
output voltage to zero, see temperature.
Fig.4. The problem with this bias currents are equal).
approach is that offsets can drift
with time and are quite Temperature Coefficient of In next month’s Circuit
temperature sensitive. Low Input Offset Voltage – Specifies Surgery we will be describing
offset opamps must be used in how VIO changes with the internal aspects of opamps,
circuits where DC accuracy is temperature. As we noted above, and offering a selector chart of
required. offset changes with temperature popular types. IMB
Bias currents flow in the and this parameter tells you by
external components connected how much.
to the opamp (e.g. the resistors
used to set the gain) and in Input Bias Current (IIB) – Bipolar
doing so cause voltage drops. If opamps require bias (base)
these voltage drops are not currents for the transistors
equal at the opamp’s two inputs connected to their inputs, and
the difference will be amplified opamps with FET inputs have
by the opamp and appear as a leakage currents at the inputs.
DC error at the output. The input bias current tells
Adding a resistor to one of you how large these currents are,
the inputs to balance the and is defined as the average
resistance through which the current into the two inputs with
bias current flows can minimize the output at zero volts. This can
this effect. This is illustrated in vary greatly for different types of
-15
Fig.5. The bias current to the opamp, from femtoamps (10 A)
inverting input flows through R1 to tens of microamps, with bipolar
or R2, so making R3 equal to opamps having larger input bias
the parallel combination of R1 currents than FET-input opamps.
and R2 will result in the same
voltage at the two inputs due to Input Offset Current (IIO) – The
the bias currents (assuming the difference between the currents
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What we are doing during this 10-part Through these simple steps we hope to prove
Teach-In 2000 series is to lead you through the to you that using electronic components need
fascinating maze of what electronics is all not be a complex task and that, providing you
about! We are assuming that you know nothing think about each stage of what you are trying
about the subject, and are taking individual to create, you can actually design and build
components and concepts in simple steps and something that works!
showing you, with lots of examples, what you Last month we introduced color codes and
can achieve, and without it taxing your brain resistors. We now look at capacitors and show
too much! you some of the things they can achieve when
used with resistors.
21DD5BI F5
There is a simpler way to

generate a square wave
frequency than you have been
using in Parts 2 and 3, and it uses
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just one inverter of a 74HC14
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Schmitt trigger integrated circuit 4"
:
4#
(IC). Modify the breadboard
6 7 8 9
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layout of Fig.3.17 last month so

that it looks like that in Fig.4.1,
but, for the moment leave out the FB!
93!
components numbered D2 and
:
1 2 3 4 5
D3, and put a 1k resistor (R1) in 3! B"
position D3. (See also Panel 4.4). [ 4!

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The assembly should be at

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the far left of the breadboard as

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(
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other circuits will be added later, Photo 4.1. The breadboard

follow the breadboard numbers
assembly for Fig.4.1 and
shown. Use the same component
FB! B! 4"
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FB! Q [
Fig.4.1. Breadboard layout ! [
for the circuit in 4#

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B"
2! $' values as shown in Fig.4.2, the
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circuit diagram for the oscillator 93!Q
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as now required. B"
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Power up the circuit and '
3! 4!
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that the rate at which light [
emitting diode (LED) D1 flashes

Fig.4.2. Schmitt trigger- is just as controllable as with the Fig.4.3. Schmitt trigger-based
based oscillator circuit, with oscillator in the layout of Part 3 oscillator circuit with variable
square wave output. Fig.3.1. It is important to note mark-space ratio control.
7($&+,1
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that this oscillator will only

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function with a Schmitt trigger
inverter (such as the 74HC14 C97>1< B53D9695B J5>5B B565B5>35 1F1<1>385
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you are using here). A “normal” @8?D?49?45 <54
inverter, such as the 74HC04,

will not work in this circuit.
Confirm that at slower
oscillation rates it is obvious
that the LED is turned on for the
31@139D9F5 6?<4213;
same length of time as it is DE>9>7 F1B931@ 2B9475
B53D9695B
turned off. In other words, that
the circuit has a square wave Fig.4.4. Commonly encountered circuit diagram symbols for
output. various diode types, note that they may sometimes be en-
closed in circles.
VARIABLE WAVEFORM modify the oscillator’s periods of are many of them.
Now modify the breadboard relative on-offness. In other We aim to eventually explain
to include the components words, you can change its mark- all terms that you encounter in
numbered D2 and D3 (see space ratio, where “mark” this Tutorial, some of which are
Photo 4.1). The equivalent means “on” (logic 1) and likely to be unfamiliar to you, but
circuit diagram is shown in “space” means “off” (logic 0). some explanations might have to
Fig.4.3. Remove the resistor With your meter, also wait until later parts of Teach-In.
you put in the D3 position. monitor IC1a pin 1 and note the Be patient, and read back on this
Components D2 and D3 are way in which the voltage section at a later date when you
ordinary silicon diodes of type changes there. You should find have gained more information.
1N4148. We shall discuss that the relative rates at which
diodes once you’ve discovered the voltage rises and falls are
what they can do for an variable. SIMPLEST
oscillator circuit. To understand why the SEMICONDUCTOR
The 1N4148 diodes in your diodes should be having this Commonly encountered
component pack should be of effect, it is necessary to look at circuit diagram symbols for
about the same size and shape the basic nature of a diode (we various members of the diode
as the resistors you have been gave a clue when we said in family are shown in Fig.4.4.
using. They are likely to have Part 1 that a LED will only
Diodes are the simplest form
their identity coded on them function if connected to a power
of usefully processed
using colored bands, in resistor supply the “correct” way round).
semiconductor, involving a single
fashion. The code, read from So let’s fill in a few more details
junction of a p-type and an n-type
left to right, should be yellow, about diodes, including LEDs.
material, terms which are
brown, yellow, gray, meaning, discussed more fully when we
of course, 4148 (as we know
from previous installments). The
DIODES IN GENERAL talk about transistors in a later
installment. A suitably processed
yellow banded end should be We shall only consider the
semiconductor, within certain
placed in the breadboard to simple points about diodes in
limits “designed-into” it during
correspond with the letter k this Tutorial. A full
manufacture, has the property of
shown on the layout in Fig.4.1 understanding of their nature
being able to conduct electrical
(we shall explain later what the and why they work requires a
current in one direction only.
k means in this context). knowledge of atomic physics
which, as we said in Part 3, we This does not mean, for
Again, power up the circuit example, that it conducts in a left-
and variously adjust VR1 and are not going discuss (sorry to
disappoint you!). to-right direction, or even north-
observe what happens to the to-south. It means that the
period for which the LED is on You do not need to
polarity of the voltage applied
compared to that during which it understand the physics in order
across its junction determines
is turned off. What you will to know how to use diodes,
whether or not current will be
observe is that you are able to whatever the type – and there
conducted through it.
7($&+,1
PANEL 4.1 – FOR- fabricated and even its temper- virtually no current will flow
ature. Manufacturer’s data through the diode.
WARD AND sheets state the voltage drop to It is this property that is
REVERSE VOLTAGE be expected from a particular exploited to make other
diode type in given circum- derivative devices, which are
There are two principal ma- stances.
terials from which diodes known by the general name of
(except LEDs) are made, ger- In many instances, the semiconductors, i.e. transistors,
manium and silicon, the latter higher voltage drop occurring integrated circuits, etc.
being the more common. Other across a silicon diode is unim-
materials, such as gallium ar- portant, although for some func-
tions the lower voltage drop DIODE PROGRAM
senide (GaAs), for example, are
also used to suit different appli- across a germanium diode may Amongst your suite of
cation requirements (such as be preferable. A big advantage Teach-In programs (which can
LEDs). of silicon diodes is that they can be downloaded for Free from
conduct higher voltages and the EPE Online Library at
In terms of signal direction currents than their germanium www.epemag.com) is an
routing, there is no basic differ- counterparts (germanium is also interactive illustration of how a
ence between the materials. less plentiful and more expen- diode responds to different input
However, there is a difference sive). voltages. From the main menu
in a property, which, in some
Although it has been said select Simple Diode.
respects, is undesirable in a
diode, the so-called forward that a diode only conducts in On entry to the program you
voltage drop. No diode conducts one direction, this is not true in will see a sinewave on the left
the full voltage level present at all circumstances. There is a and another waveform on the
its anode through to its cathode; limit to the amount of voltage right (see Photo 4.2). They
there is always a voltage drop that a diode can withstand in the represent the signal voltage
between the two (although the opposite (cathode to anode) di- before and after it has passed
output voltage will never be rection. This is known as the through the diode.
lower than the reference voltage reverse voltage, or breakdown
In the center is a circuit
of the circuit to which the cath- voltage, and varies with differ-
diagram showing the symbol for
ode is connected – see the ent types of diode construction.
a simple diode. Note its anode
Diode Program discussion). Above this voltage, the (a) and cathode (k) markings.
For germanium diodes, this diode’s polarized structure For the calculations in this
drop is typically a minimum of breaks down and current will display the diode is assumed to
about 0 2 volts, whereas for sili-
¬
indeed flow back through it, of- be manufactured from silicon.
ten with disastrous conse- Resistor R represents the load
con it is typically a minimum of
quences for the diode and, per- (circuit) to which the output of
about 0 7 volts, although for
¬
haps, other components within the diode is connected.
both types the actual drop de- the circuit; diode specification
pends on several factors, which The input voltage waveform
parameters should never be ex-
include the current flowing is seen to be regularly
ceeded.
through it, the nature of the ma- oscillating between 0V and +2V.
terial from which the diode is The output waveform, however,
will be seen to vary only
Conventionally, a simple is known as a diode. The term between 0V and 1 3V, with a
¬
semiconducting material is dates back into history when the considerable period at which it
regarded as having two sides, thermionic valve was first remains at 0V.
respectively called the anode, introduced and means “two
denoted by the letter a, and the electrodes”.
cathode, denoted by the letter k.
VOLTAGE DROP
If a voltage is connected
You will have seen these letters across a diode with its positive One important fact to learn
alongside the LEDs. shown in side on the anode and the about any diode is that it always
the circuit diagrams from Part 2 negative side on the cathode, a causes a voltage drop in any
onwards. current will flow through the signal that passes through it
In this simplest of diode. If, on the other hand, the from the anode (a) to the
construction, the semiconductor voltage polarity is reversed, cathode (k). The term given to
7($&+,1
this characteristic is forward
voltage drop and is explained in
Panel 4.1.
What you see on the screen
in the output voltage graph is
the input voltage level minus
0 7V drop for a silicon diode.
¬
But, because the diode only

conducts in the forward
direction (a to k) the output
voltage can never go below the
output reference voltage (in this
case 0V) to which its cathode is
connected via the load, hence
the misshapen 0V to 1 3V ¬
waveform.
It is important to note,
though, that if the output Photo 4.2. The interactive computer display illustrating
reference voltage via the load is
how a simple diode responds to different
other than 0V, then the diode’s
output voltage will never go voltage levels.
below that level. For example, if
the load were to be co be made to do more than just used in either direction,
conduct in a single direction. depending on whether the
nnected to 1 0V rather
¬ tha
Simple diodes, such as the positive-going or negative-going
n 0V, then the output waveform aspect of the waveform is
now on screen would be type illustrated in the computer
program, have just one basic required.
swinging between 1 0V and
¬
function, to allow a voltage to However, diodes are

1 3V. Similarly, if the output
¬
reach one part of a circuit but manufactured for specifically
reference voltage from the
prevent the voltage from that different types of rectification
diode were to be –1 0V then the
¬
part reaching back into the and other uni-directional signal
output voltage would swing circuit preceding the diode. flow requirements. Some, for
between –0 7V and 1 3V without
¬ ¬
example, may be stated as
This function can be used,
distortion at its lowest point. being signal diodes and are only
for example, to allow only the
You can explore the way in positive level of an alternating intended for use where the
which the diode simulation (AC) voltage to be fed forwards voltage and current flow are
responds by shifting the range through the diode whilst small, such as the 1N4148
of the input voltage waveform preventing the negative level you’ve been using.
using the up/down arrow keys, from flowing backwards through Others may be stated as
and changing the load’s it (as the program shows). being rectifier types, and these
reference voltage using the <+> are generally more robust,
Such an action allows the
and <–> keys. being capable of handling high
AC signal from a transformer,
for instance, to be rectified voltages and large currents. The
1N4001 device in your
DIODE FAMILY (explained in a later Teach-In
components bag (see the Shop
part) to produce a DC voltage,
Diodes as a family have Talk page in this issue of the
which in turn can be smoothed
valuable uses in their own right magazine if you’ve only just
using a capacitor, so providing
and, by suitably doctoring the joined us) is one of these types,
power to an entire circuit.
material from which they are it can withstand reverse
made (manufacturers By its very nature, any voltages of about 50V and
“contaminate” – or “dope” – simple diode can rectify an AC allows a forward current of
semiconductors with other signal so that only one half of its about 1A (whereas a 1N4148
materials in order to change waveform is allowed through as has respective limits of 75V and
their characteristics), they can a polarized voltage. It can be 10mA).
7($&+,1
PANEL 4.2 – DIODE The third letter, where in- one of the commonest general-
cluded, does not generally have purpose small signal silicon
PARAMETERS, any particular significance, diodes.
IDENTITIES, AND other than to the manufacturer.
Zener diodes, (explained in a POLARITY
POLARITY future Teach-In part), have ad-
The important parameters which ditional letters, which follow the The polarity of a diode is indi-
are usually quoted for any diode identity numbers, showing the cated in several different ways.
type include the following: Zener voltage and its tolerance: With small diodes that have an
o) Type – e.g. germanium or sili-
A = 1%
imprinted alphanumeric coding
con
B = 2%
(e.g. 1N4001), a painted band
around the body indicates the
o) Application – e.g. signal, recti-
C = 5% cathode end. With color-coded
fier or general purpose
o) PIV – peak inverse (reverse)

D = 10% diodes, the cathode is the end at
which the color code begins. In
voltage However, it has now become some instances, it is the case
o) IF(max) – forward maximum less easy to identify diode types style which indicates polarity (for
current from their prefix letters and which manufacturer’s data should
many codings exist which do be consulted).
Other diode parameters may not conform to the above stan-
be quoted in data tables and indi- If in doubt, polarities can be
dards, as will become apparent checked using the diode-check
cated by various abbreviations, when studying manufacturer’s
but they are beyond the scope of facility found on many digital mul-
diode data tables. timeters. They can also be
this Teach-In.
The American system for checked using an analog meter,
Some diode types (but not all) identifying semiconductor setting the meter on a low resis-
can be identified from the al- diodes involves a code which tance range and connecting the
phanumeric coding with which commences “1N”. Diodes coded probes across the diode. When in
they are imprinted. In the Euro- according to this system cannot resistance (ohms) mode, a posi-
pean system for classifying semi- have their function directly iden- tive voltage is normally present
conductor diodes, the coding can tified from their number, except on the meter’s negative (common
have either two letters and three by referring to data sheets and or “–“) socket (black lead) and a
figures, or three letters and two tables. It is thus recommended negative voltage on its positive
figures. The first two letters have that when a diode’s function or (“+”) socket (red).
the following significance: characteristics are unknown, its If a low resistance reading is
part number should always be indicated, the black probe is con-
First letter, semiconductor ma- looked up in a data table or a nected to the anode and the red
terial: catalog. probe to the cathode. A high re-
A Germanium Whilst most diodes have sistance reading indicates that
their identities printed on them the polarity is the other way
B Silicon
as type numbers, sometimes round.
C Gallium arsenide identity numbers can also be The polarity of a LED is not
D Photodiodes, etc. color-coded onto the diode always so easy to check using a
body, in the same way that re- meter. In most instances, though,
Second letter, application:
sistors are color-coded. The col- the lead nearest the “flat” side of
A General purpose ored bands are usually towards a LED is normally the cathode,
B Tuning one end of the diode. the other lead being the anode.
E Tunnel As we indicated towards the One way to check is to connect
P Photovoltaic beginning of this part of Teach- the LED in series with a 1kilohm
Q Light emitting In, holding the diode so that the resistor across (say) a 6V DC
T Controllable power recti- bands are to the left, the code is power supply. If the LED does not
fiers read from left to right. For ex- glow in one direction, try turning it
X Varactors, multipliers ample, a diode marked yellow- around. If it fails to glow in this
brown-yellow-gray reads as direction, it’s probably dead (or
Y Power you’ve forgotten to switch on the
4148, i.e. it is a type 1N4148,
Z Zener and reference power!).
7($&+,1
Others may be OTHER DIODE TYPES substance will emit light if
manufactured in such a way as sufficient current passes
to enhance the speed at which Apart from “ordinary” signal through it so that it heats up
they respond, or to increase or and rectifier diodes, there are above a certain temperature,
decrease the capacitance which several more types available, but even air (think of lightning in a
is inherent in any diode. Yet of a more specialized nature, thunderstorm); and there are
others may be more suited to including: some gases which can be made
video or audio signal processing o) Avalanche diodes to fluoresce when a sufficiently
for a variety of reasons, o) Bridge rectifier diode high voltage is present across
including low noise assemblies them, neon and argon, for
characteristics. o) Constant current diodes example.
Data tables will usually give o) Foldback diodes Some solids, though, have
an indication of what sort of o) Light emitting diodes (l.e.d.s) the strange property that they
application a particular diode will emit light without being
o) Photodiodes (light sensitive) heated when only a small
type is best suited to.
o) P-I-N diodes current at a low voltage level
o) Schottky diodes flows through them. Gallium
OTHER FUNCTIONS o) Tuning diodes (Varicap arsenide (GaAs) is one such
The voltage blocking diodes) material, and it is from this that
characteristic of a diode has o) Tunnel diodes LEDs are typically made,
other functions. For example, o) Ultrafast diodes usually in conjunction with other
one function that can be substances. Depending on the
o) Varactor diodes nature of the substances used,
performed by diodes, in
o) Zener or reference diodes LEDs are available which can
conjunction with capacitors, is to
increase the voltage of an AC We suggest you read through emit infrared, red, orange,
waveform. Panels 4.2 and 4.6 for some yellow, green, blue and white
more specific information about light.
Diodes are also used to
prevent damage to voltage diodes in general.
sensitive components by LED CONDUCTION
preventing a potentially
hazardous excess or opposing-
LIGHT EMITTING As with the simple diode
discussed earlier, LEDs are
polarity voltage from reaching DIODES used in the forward conducting
them, and they have uses in You have, of course, been direction, that is, the voltage on
signal compression and limiting. using light emitting diodes (LEDs) the anode must be higher than
When several diodes are since Part 1. It’s time now to that at the cathode, typically
used to feed voltages into or out discuss them more fully. between about 1 5V to 3V,
¬
of the same part of the circuit, Many materials can emit light according to the type.
they have the ability to be used when a current
as logical OR gates and AND is passed
gates (more on Gates and Logic through them.
is discussed in Teach-In Part 6). An ordinary
As you discovered at the filament bulb,
beginning of this Tutorial, in such as used in
oscillating circuits they can also a torch or a
be used to change the relative room light,
rates at which a generated emits light
frequency rises and falls, because its
converting a triangle waveform filament wire is
into a ramp waveform, for heated.
example. Indeed, any
electrically
conductive
Photo 4.3. A selection of constructions that use
multiple LED arrays.
7($&+,1
although it is often desirable to
have another LED or “normal”
diode connected in parallel but
with an opposite polarity, i.e.
Q cathode to anode, anode to
cathode.
Q Q Q Q Q [
[ Q In this instance, a single
series resistor is used to limit
[ Q [ [ [ [ [
the current through one or other
Q common connection, see
Fig.4.5b. This action keeps the
[
voltage level across each diode
within acceptable limits during
1 2 3 4 its reverse voltage condition.
Fig.4.5 Methods of using (a) single LED (DC drive); With a DC supply voltage, it
(b) LED with diode in an AC circuit; (c) LEDs in paris sometimes required for
allel (DC); (d) LEDs in series (DC). several LEDs to be connected
in parallel, all having the same
At much below the typical their case and are intended for polarity and each turning on at
voltage level, the LED will not use with specific supply the same time. In this case it is
emit light. If the voltage is too voltages, but this is an preferable to use a separate
much above that level, too exception and most do not. series resistor for each of them,
much current will flow and the see Fig.4.5c.
Depending on the type,
LED will die. Consequently, a LEDs begin to emit light when The reason is that each
resistor (known in this type of the current flowing is about LED is likely to have slightly
application as a ballast resistor) 0 5mA to 1 5mA, but a current of
¬ ¬
different current requirements
must always be used in series and the use of a single resistor
between about 8mA and 20mA
with a LED, either before the would favor the most current-
is usually required for good
anode or after the cathode, its hungry one, to the detriment of
visibility to occur, although there
value being chosen so as to the light output from the others.
are low-current LEDs that glow
safely limit the maximum Additionally, this method is also
brightly with less current. The
current flow, yet still allow preferable in case one LED
maximum current that a typical
sufficient for the LED to emit should die, forcing an
LED can tolerate is about 30mA
enough light as to be clearly unacceptable amount of current
(but data sheets should be
visible, see Fig.4.5a. through the others, threatening
consulted for specific types and
Note, however, that some their limits). their life as well.
LEDs have a resistor built into Any number of LEDs can be
Compared to filament
lamps, LEDs offer not connected in series as long as
only great
savings in power
consumption, but
also offer
advantages of a
much longer life,
smaller size,
insensitivity to
shocks and
vibrations, and
have a rapid
response time.
They can
Photo 4.4. The interactive computer dis- also be
play illustrating how a LED responds to connected to an Photo 4.5. A selection of diode and
varying voltages and currents. AC supply, bridge rectifier types.
7($&+,1
the supply voltage available is

high enough to overcome their PANEL 4.3 - L.E.D CHARACTERISTICS
total forward voltage drop. A The principal characteristics of LEDs are:
single resistor is used to limit o) IF – typical forward current
the current in the normal way,
see Fig.4.5d. o) IF(max) – maximum forward current
o) VF – forward voltage
Of historical interest, LEDs
were patented by Messers Bay o) VR – reverse voltage
and Szigeti in 1939. o) PTOT – power dissipation
Panel 4.3 details some of o) A – area of light collecting surface; may also refer to the maxi-
the characteristics for LEDs. mum angle at which the light emission can be reasonably viewed
o) Wavelength of the maximum emitted light intensity, in nanome-
ters (nm)
LED PROGRAM o) Light intensity for a given current
From the program’s main
LEDs are available not only as individual items, but also as multi-
menu, select Light Emitting
ple units, arranged so that each one within the unit can be individu-
Diode. The screen will again
ally controlled. Such multiple units include 7-segment displays and
display two waveforms (see
general-purpose matrixed devices, in which there are several rows of
Photo 4.4). The one on the left
diodes and several diodes in each row (see Photo 4.3).
represents a positively biased
sinusoidal voltage being input to When matrixed, the LEDs will either have their cathodes joined
a LED via a resistor (the ballast (common cathode type) or their anodes (common anode type). The
resistor.) two types are not interchangeable in a circuit.
It should be noted that a Some units have two LEDs in them, electrically facing in opposite
LED is usually powered from a directions and having different colors. The color displayed depends
steady DC source. The screen on the current flow direction.
shows a sinusoidal waveform There are even some devices which house four LEDs in the same
because it better illustrates the package producing a mix of output colors, including red, orange, yel-
way in which the LED responds low, green, blue or white. Another LED type has an additional circuit
to different voltages and built in which causes the light to flash when power is applied.
currents.
In circuit diagrams, the numerical identity of an individual LED is
The graph on the right usually prefixed by the letter “D”, although it may also be prefixed by
illustrates the current that “LED” or “LD”, or sometimes by “LP” (short for Lamp). Units which
passes through the LED and contain several LEDs may be prefixed by the general catch-all prefix
ballast resistor. Alongside this “X”, e.g. “X2”.
graph are captions that indicate
In catalogs, LEDs may be listed under “Optoelectronics” rather
the type of response that a
than under “Semiconductors”.
typical LED might produce for a
given current.
lowered using the keyboard up particular reference levels, will
The LED in this example is and down arrows. The value for be discussed later in the series
assumed to have a forward R1 can be changed using the when we look at power supplies.
voltage drop of 2V. The current <+> and <–> keys. However, for interest, you can
that passes through it is learn a bit about Zeners now by
As said previously, different
calculated as: running the software menu
LED types may have different
current characteristics etc., and option Zener Diodes.
I = (Vin – 2V) / R1
the program should only be
This formula only holds true taken as an approximate guide BRIDGE RECTIFIERS
if the voltage across the LED is to how a LED will respond.
greater than 2V. For a voltage A frequently encountered
less than this, no current will type of diode construction is the
flow. ZENER DIODES bridge rectifier (see Photo 4.5).
Zener diodes, which are In fact, this is not a single diode,
The range of the input
used to regulate (fix) voltages at as are the others in the list
voltage can be raised or
7($&+,1
PANEL 4.4 – UNUSED LOGIC ON DISPLAY

GATE INPURTS We suggest that you now
move on to the Experimental
Note that in Fig.4.1 the inputs to the unused inverters in IC1 have
article. It’s different in concept
been connected to either +VE or 0V. (See Fig.2.10 of Part 2 for the
to those you enjoyed in Parts 1
74HC04/74HC14 hex inverter pinout diagram.) We did not wish to
to 3. This time we ask you to
trouble you with this point before, but it is good practice to always
assemble the first part of a
connect unused CMOS logic gate inputs to one or other of the power
simple circuit that allows your
supply lines.
computer to input waveforms
This prevents them from “floating” and picking up stray electrical and voltage levels from the
interference and static electricity. It is only unused inputs which need circuits you have been creating
to be “tied” in this way. Never tie unused outputs to the power so far, and those yet to come.
rails. It’s an eye-opener!
given earlier, but a group of four Then, in Part 5 next month,
SPECIALIST DIODES we examine different waveform
silicon diodes connected as
shown in Fig.4.4. In Panel 4.5 are brief details shapes, and shall be able to
of some specialist diodes which illustrate some via the computer
However, because bridge will not normally be display – not only as simulations
rectifiers are normally used in encountered in most hobbyist but as actual real-time
power supply circuits, they will applications. This information is waveforms that you create via
be discussed when we examine primarily given so that you know your breadboard.
that subject. that such devices exist.
PANEL 4.5 – MISCEL- value, which remains substan- Tuning (Varicap) diodes
tially constant over a wide range Tuning diodes are designed to
LANEOUS DIODES of current. They are mainly vary their capacitance in re-
Avalanche diodes found in voltage suppression sponse to changes in the voltage
applications. across them, and are thus equiv-
Avalanche diodes have simi-
lar voltage and current charac- alently known as Varicap
teristics to “ordinary” Zener P-I-N diodes (variable capacitance) diodes.
diodes, but have a much They are especially used in high
A P-I-N diode is a refined frequency tuning applications,
greater surge handling capacity
version of the “basic” p-n junc- very high frequency (VHF) and
combined with extremely fast
tion diode with special charac- ultra high frequency (UHF) radio
switch-on times. They are com-
teristics that make it suitable for tuning for example, in place of
monly found in voltage suppres-
use at radio frequencies. The the rotary type of variable capaci-
sion applications.
letter I indicates that the diode tor whose capacitance range is
has an “Intrinsic” layer sand- too coarse or too large to be prac-
Constant current diodes wiched between the p and the n tical. Their use also has the great
layers – a technicality outside benefit that no mechanical action
Because of their superior the scope of this Tutorial.
stability, constant current diodes is involved.
are ideally suited for use as cur-
rent regulators and limiters, bi- Schottky diodes Tunnel diodes
asing elements, and for use in
A Schottky diode is a sophis- Tunnel diodes are specially
linear ramp generators, stair-
ticated type of diode which has processed diodes whose forward
case generators etc.
a forward voltage drop that is conduction displays a negative
typically about half that of a resistance characteristic. Such
Foldback diodes “normal” silicon diode, and has diodes can be used in low noise
a fast reverse recovery. It finds amplifiers or in oscillator circuits,
A foldback diode is a device particular use in switch mode
that, under voltage surge condi- up to microwave frequencies.
power supplies where such at-
tions, enters the avalanche tributes offer greater power con-
mode as normal, but causes the version efficiency. Ultrafast diodes
voltage to fall from that of a
breakdown value to a clamping Ultrafast recovery rectifier
7($&+,1
diodes feature high reverse Varactor diodes can be used to generate har-
voltage capability, very short Varactor diodes are another monic multiples of a fundamen-
recovery times, very low switch- type of diode whose capaci- tal frequency.
ing losses, and low-noise turn- tance can be changed accord-
off switching. They are suitable ing to the applied voltage. They
for use in switch-mode power find use in voltage multiplying
supplies and similar fast rectifier circuits (doubling, tripling, etc.),
applications. where their non-linear action
TEACH-IN 2000 – EXPERIMENTAL 4

COMPUTER INTERFACE
What we want to do in this
Experimental article is to enable
you to use your computer as an
item of test equipment. This will
let you make very simple
connections between the
computer via its parallel printer
port cable and your various
breadboard circuits – past,
present and future.
In other words, we are going
let the computer become a
simple form of oscilloscope – an
item of test equipment that
shows both digital and analog Photo 4.6. Computer interface connector plugged
waveforms on its screen while into the breadboard.
they happen.
(Centronics) parallel printer port actually see on screen the
Don’t expect the full
cable plugs. The socket’s pins waveforms that you create with
facilities or speed of a true
are on a different spacing to the oscillator described in this
oscilloscope, or indeed of
that of your breadboard and so month’s Tutorial.
commercial computer-based
we have produced a specially
oscilloscope simulators. Such
designed printed circuit board
items would set you back
(PCB) into which you need to IT’S AN EYE-OPENER
several hundred UK pounds. By
solder the connector and a set You will find that using this
comparison, our simple
of terminal pins. The terminal simulated test gear facility, with
interface should cost you less
pins then plug into your its four program options, is an
than 20 UK Pounds.
breadboard. absolute eye-opener. When the
It has to said, though, that author first used an oscilloscope
This set-up allows the
the speed at which your in his early days of electronics
computer to read the status
computer runs will have a (long before computers were
(logic 0 or logic 1) of five
significant bearing on the rate at even imagined to be
separate connections made to
which the program can obtain commonplace household items)
its input lines. Additionally, eight
data from the interface. This will it was like having a blindfold
other separate connections can
place limits on the signal removed from his eyes. He
be made to the computer’s
waveform frequency that can be could actually see what was
output lines, allowing it to
displayed. happening. (Moreover, he
control various future
breadboard assemblies. actually built the oscilloscope
INTERFACE MODULE himself from ex-Government
Next month we also “surplus” components.)
Basically all the interface describe and illustrate a very
consists of is a connector socket simple breadboard circuit, using Whilst you will have found
into which a standard just one IC, that will allow you to out that reading a meter display
7($&+,1
D2! C;!
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Fig.4.6. Circuit diagram for the simple breadboard to computer interface.
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Fig.4.7. (Approximately) full size printed
1 2 3 4 5
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circuit board copper foil track master B!
layout pattern.
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Photo 4.7. Com-

puter interface
component layout F
details. The inte- Fig.4.8. Component layout for the com-

grated circuit on puter interface circuit.
the left (and its ad-
has been very informative to you so far (and will
ditional connec- continue to be so), this computer interface will
tions shown) are open up your electronics horizons even further.
the analog to digi- Having said that, though, when you become
tal converter inter- more experienced in electronics than you are
face to be de- now, do purchase a real oscilloscope (or even a
scribed in part 5. virtual 'scope – one that uses an interface unit
plus a PC as the display controller). It will allow
you to do far, far more than our simple interface
can do, and at an enormously faster rate. In the author’s workshop a
'scope is without doubt the most used item of test gear he has, the
second is/are his multimeters, and thirdly is/are his computers.
7($&+,1
INTERFACE CIRCUIT socket to the board
through the two
The complete circuit for the holes provided,
basic digital interface between enlarging them with
the computer and breadboard is a drill if necessary.
shown in Fig.4.6. A second part Now carefully solder
to the interface will be described the pins to their
next month – the part which tracks. Ignore those
allows analog waveforms to be pins hat do not have
input, the analog-to-digital tracks – they do not
converter (ADC). need to be soldered.
The computer’s parallel Take a strip of
printer port has eight output terminal pins and cut
data lines, D0 to D7, which are off a length of eight
connected to a terminal pin Photo 4.8. Parallel Port Display/Set screen and a length of six.
block, at which point they Turn each strip so
on the interactive computer display.
become re-named as OUT0 to that its shorter pin
OUT7. There are also five lengths are
tracking details in Fig.4.7 and
printer port lines, which can be downwards, and press the strip
Fig.4.8, you should not find
used as data inputs from firmly onto a hard surface that
these few solder joints hard to
terminal pins IN0 to IN4. Strictly will not damage and cause fury
make. Having made them,
speaking, they are normally in your household! Press down
though, it is imperative that you
used by the printer to send until the pins are barely
should check that none of the
status messages back to the protruding on that side (but just
joints undesirably link with
computer, hence their names at enough showing so that a meter
others.
the computer end. probe can contact each one).
With a close-up magnifying
The resistor configurations Insert the terminal strips
glass, double-triple check that
are included in the IN0 to IN4 into the board, with their pins
there are no solder connections
data lines to keep the voltages protruding from the trackside,
between adjacent pads or
input to the computer below 5V. and solder them. Now check
tracks. If there are, just touch
It is assumed that your that all the solder joints are OK,
the hot soldering iron to them
computer’s voltage input limit is as cautioned above.
and they should separate. If this
5V. Your breadboard circuits,
fails, use a sharp knife or When satisfied with the
however, are powered at about
scraper tool to cut through the board, press the assembly
6V. What the resistors do is to
offending connections. firmly into the end of the
reduce (attenuate) the 6V levels
to 5V. As an additional check, use breadboard as shown in Fig.4.8
your multimeter on a low Ohms (also see Photo 4.7). Note the
range to check that adjacent breadboard hole numbers and
PRELIMINARY tracks/joints on the board are position the assembly
isolated from each other. accordingly. Do not insert into
ADVICE the breadboard the other
To assemble your interface The Teach-In Computer
components shown until we tell
connector board, it is necessary Interface printed circuit board is
you to.
to do just a bit of soldering. In available from the EPE Online
the Introduction to Part 1 we Store (code 7000253) at
said that some would be needed www.epemag.com INTERFACE TESTING
and recommended that, if you With one end of the
were unfamiliar with soldering, INTERFACE ASSEMBLY computer’s parallel port printer
you should peruse a copy of our lead plugged into the computer
Basic Soldering Guide from the Carefully push the computer (and with the computer switched
EPE Online Library at connector socket pins through off), plug the other end into the
www.epemag.com the holes on the printed circuit interface board assembly. If any
board, so that they protrude on other equipment is connected to
As you will see from the the “track side”. Do not solder
interface board’s assembly and your printer port via an adapter,
them yet. Securely bolt the disconnect it.
7($&+,1
Power up the computer in DC, take voltage readings at the If none of the port
the usual way. In the unlikely top of the OUT0-OUT7 terminal addresses allow you to set logic
event that the computer pins. The meter’s COM probe values on the terminal pins,
behaves in any way out of the should contact with the GND again recheck all your
ordinary, immediately switch it terminal pin. For each logic 1 assembly, including proper
off, unplug the connector from shown on screen, that same connection of the printer port
the interface board and recheck OUT terminal pin should read cable at both ends. If there is
that all the solder connections about +5V. For logic 0 it should still no success, consult your
are satisfactory. read as 0V. computer manual or supplier.
From the Teach-In main It is regrettable that the (Please also tell us at EPE
menu select Parallel Port Data order of the connector pins Online about this, stating the
Display/Set. On the resulting dictates that the numerical order computer type and what voltage
screen are three boxes of data, of the terminal pins has to be readings you actually get.)
as shown in Photo 4.8. the reverse of that on screen; Once the correct port
The two upper boxes are be aware of this when taking the address has been found, it will
associated with data input. The voltage readings. automatically be stored for
lower one, Output Byte, is future use by the program when
you next call the main menu.
concerned with data output and PORT ADDRESS Note that it is our software that
is the one we are interested in
first. You may have now found a holds the address – no change
small problem – it doesn’t work! is made to the computer’s own
As we shall explain further A three-in-one chance, perhaps, system data.
in Part 6, a computer byte of that this is so. The problem you
data consists of eight bits (of may encounter is that the
data), where each data bit can computer has internal settings DATA INPUT TEST
be set high or low (logic 1 or that dictate by which “register Having completed the data
logic 0). The bits in this instance address” (route) data is output output test, it seems logical to
are those that can be set onto to its parallel printer port pins. do an input test! Plug resistors
the eight output lines on the R1 to R10 into the breadboard
interface board, 0 to 7 (many The address frequently
used is that at port register as shown in Fig.4.8 and with
identity numbers in computing values as shown in Fig.4.6. (Do
and digital electronics location &H378 (378
hexadecimal – 888 decimal) it with the computer unplugged
commence at 0). from the breadboard.)
and this is the address used as
In the Output Byte box, the the default by the computer With the computer
first line shows the bit numbers program. It is stated as such at reconnected, look at the two top
in reverse order (another the top right of your screen. boxes on the computer screen
computer/digital convention). There are two other addresses and make a note of the binary
Each of the bits can be set high that might be encountered on and decimal values shown. We
or low from your keyboard, your computer system, &H278 shall discuss the difference
using the same numbered keys. and &H3BC (decimal 632 and between the two boxes next
Line two (Byte) shows the status 956). Your program can be set month. The right-hand box (box
of each bit as you set or clear it to use either of these instead. 2) should show binary bits 4 to 0
(1 and 0 respectively). (Incidentally, hexadecimal and as zeroes.
The arrangement of the bit binary numbers are discussed in Clip your battery’s negative
values of the byte is in fact a Part 6.) lead to the 0V pin on the
binary number (although in Press <P>, to change the breadboard. Now clip the
many applications this fact may port address to &H278. Now try battery’s positive lead to the IN0
not be important) and its value the above tests again. If the pin on the breadboard. In box 2,
in decimal is shown in line pins still do not change their bit 0 should have changed from
three, Value. logic state in response to your logic 0 to logic 1. Removing the
Experiment with pressing numerical keying, press <P> positive lead from the IN0 pin
your numeral keys and see the again to select port address should return that bit to logic 0.
effect in the Output Byte box. &H3BC. Try the pin logic test Do the same for the other
Now, with your multimeter on a again. breadboard input pins, IN1 to
suitable scale for reading 5V
7($&+,1
IN4. All should change status
accordingly.
The success of this test
depends on the Port address
still being set to that found
necessary for the Output test.
PULSE TEST
Remove the battery
connections used for the Input
test. Connect the battery back
onto the power input pins for the
oscillator circuit you were using
in this month’s Tutorial.
Ensure that a link exists Photo 4.9. Typical pulse waveforms input to the
between the 0V connection of computer via the simple interface board.
that circuit and the 0V
connection of the interface enough for the computer to and describe the additional (and
circuit. Make a crocodile-clipped respond to it. very simple) breadboard circuit
connection between IC1a pin 2 Just for interest, observe that will let you display the
(Fout) and interface input IN0. box 2 when the oscillator is shape of the waveform that
Set VR1 of the oscillator to connected to any of the other occurs at the VR1/C1 junction
a midway position and use a interface input pins. of the oscillator, via the Analog
100uF (or greater) capacitor for Input Waveform Display
C1. This allows a square wave program.
at a slow rate to be sent to the UNTIL NEXT MONTH We shall also discuss
IN0 pin. Next month we shall waveform shapes in general.
Observe bit 0 of screen box discuss other aspects of the Until next month, then, 'bye!
2. It should repeatedly change computer interface and its
between 0 and 1 in time with the program. Until then, though, you
changing output of IC1a. You can experiment with the
can try adjusting VR1 to change Frequency Counter and Pulse
the rate, but you will find that at Waveform displays, both of
the more extreme settings the which are selectable from the
computer may fail to respond. main menu.
This is because one or other In both programs you have
side of the waveform is too brief the option to set the “active bit”,
for it to be recognized by the in other words to specify to
computer. This will be which of the interface input pins
especially true with slower the oscillator is connected. In
computers. the case of the Pulse display,
What you can do to also experiment with the Display
alleviate some of this problem Step option.
is to remove both diodes (D2 Do not change the Port
and D3) from the breadboard, address that you found to be
and place a 1kilohm resistor in active in the original Output
the D3 position (as you did at tests.
the beginning of the this
If your computer has
month’s Tutorial). This will
sufficient speed, try speeding up
cause a square wave output to
the breadboard oscillator’s rate.
be generated whatever the
setting of VR1. The oscillation We shall explain both of
rate, though, must be kept slow these programs next month,
SURFING THE INTERNET
By Alan Winstanley
SWEET Web TV users will gradually Texan pal uses an ordinary 56K
start to gain access to web sites modem and for a flat rate of
DREAMCASTS (especially if they don’t have a $19.99 (12 UK Pounds) a month
Before Christmas I treated PC). he enjoys unlimited 24 x 7 Inter-
myself to a Sega Dreamcast If web sites wish to capital- net access. In fact he gets it for
games console to replace my ize on the emerging medium of $12 (7 UK Pounds) because of
redundant Mega Drive (Genesis Web TV, they will need to offer loyalty discount options. Local
in the USA) for entertainment a Web TV option which has a phone calls are free, as are In-
purposes. This terrific fan- fixed width page, large legible ternet access calls. Using a Net-
cooled 128-bit games console fonts that can be viewed from Zero account
has an internal 33 6 modem and
¬ ten feet away, and few naviga- (www.netzero.net), for the
BT phone lead. Sega provides tion choices. HSBC Bank al- price of a banner advert on his
their own limited Java, Flash ready offers on-line banking by desktop, he enjoys a free ISP.
and MPEG-aware web browser digital TV and there are many The cost of Internet access
disk (the Sega Dreamkey), so more services to come. in the US has become almost
naturally it wasn’t long before The Dreamcast software forgettable. It is not surprising
the inevitable happened and I keyboard uses the gamepad to that the US press boasts of how
attempted surfing the net using “press” the on-screen keys and America is beating the English –
the TV as a monitor and the is a pain to use, so Sega’s sepa- supposedly the nation of shop-
Dreamcast software keyboard to rate AT-style keyboard (price 20 keepers – at their own game.
type an E-mail. UK Pounds) would be essential American E-commerce seems
Sega’s UK Internet service for more enthusiastic use. At to be thriving (which is why I
is managed by BT, and ulti- the moment it would barely be just ordered the SETI@home T-
mately players will be able to worth the cost except for send- shirt from the US today), whilst
challenge adversaries from all ing the very briefest of E-mail UK Internet commerce is being
over Europe (but not, it seems, messages. This is because the strangled at birth in what has
anywhere else in the world). Dreamcast provides an on-line rapidly become a national scan-
The first stage is to create a E-mail client, so legions of dal of prohibitive phone call
user ID via the Dream Arena Sonic the Hedgehog lovers (or costs.
web site, which gives you a free their parents) are faced with Remember that most users
dreamcast.com E-mail ad- making standard local-rate BT are fleeced by the BT minimum
dress. The access speed was calls to compose and fetch E- charge of 5p (8 cents) for each
then adequate enough to visit a mail whilst logged in to the and every call. This aspect is
web site or two, although many Dreamcast web site. It would almost as punitive as the lack of
page layouts were altered dras- make an entertaining introduc- “unmetered” (flat rate) phone
tically by the fact that they are tion to E-mail and the web, calls. I can dial in and collect
viewed at a fixed width using a though. the latest batch of E-mail text
TV browser. messages from all my POP3
Considering that many web boxes in under a minute
CUT THE PHONE (equivalent to about 1p at off-
developers agonize at their
clients’ expense over the most TARIFFS peak prices) during the day, but
trivial of design details, they all in effect I will pay five times that
A friend from the USA re-
overlook one market yet to value because of the minimum
cently visited for a few days so
emerge in the UK – Web TV. charge. Every Internet access
we decided to compare phone
Experience of using Sega’s web call, whether through a Sega
prices. Life for an Internet user
browser on a TV set provides a Dreamcast or your PC, costs 5p
in the Dallas Metroplex is a
taste of things to come for many minimum and some Internet
whole lot rosier than that of a
home Internet users, when more Content Providers (notably
British Telecom customer. My
AOL) now actively dwell on con-
1HW :RUN
sumers’ fears of racking up launch of BT Surftime, billed as loyalty discount, and it still ex-
large phone bills. AOL wants an “unlimited access price pack- cludes local voice calls. Indeed,
9.99 UK Pounds a month and age”. Naturally, nothing is sim- for only $40 a month Texans
the call is still a penny a minute. ple and the end user is offered a can enjoy cable modem access,
number of pricing options, none offering a 100 to 120-fold in-
of which permits local voice crease in bandwidth over a V.90
CHRISTMAS LITMUS phone calls. It is only after modem. Cable modems are
Over Christmas ’99, many many months of use, if not starting to roll out in the UK too,
radio and TV consumer pro- years, that users can build up with ntl [sic] gearing up to offer
grams chattered excitedly about an accurate picture of their a range of hosting services as
the new-found novelty of pur- likely Internet requirements. well.
chasing goods over the Internet. Newcomers to the Internet must I almost omitted BT’s “pay-
Americans will laugh, but for therefore take a shot in the dark as-you-go” option priced at 1p
many UK consumers, last regarding the best choice of tar- per minute evening, night-time
Christmas will have been a lit- iff for them. BT’s new scheme is and weekend or, naturally, dou-
mus paper test for E-commerce. based on its interpretation of the ble that price during the day. It
Now that the Internet is trendy nation’s browsing habits and for is not yet clear whether the min-
and appealing (and not to men- many it will be as bewildering as imum 5p call has been ditched,
tion a whole lot more usable), selecting a mobile phone tariff. but at the time of writing OFTEL
consumers are taking to order- The proposals are these: has yet to approve the new
ing on-line like wildfire, and they Weekend Internet would cost package anyway, which will be
are proving adept at sniffing out 6.99 UK Pounds per month inc. “subject to availability”.
the best deals. By next Christ- VAT for unlimited weekend ac-
mas the novelty of E-commerce The Campaign for Un-
cess. Or you could try the metered Telecommunications
will be taken for granted, and Evening and night-time Inter-
users will simply be concerned (or CUT for short) has an exten-
net option instead for the same sive web resource devoted to
with finding the cheapest bar- price, which provides unlimited
gains from the most likely- the campaign for unmetered
access in the evening and night- phone calls, at
looking suppliers. time from Monday to Friday. www.unmetered.org.uk. I fear
Unlike the service enjoyed Alternatively there’s always the they still have a lot of work to
within the Dallas Metroplex by proposed Daytime Internet op- do, and I wish them luck.
my acquaintance, thanks to tion which jumps to 26.99 UK
BT’s pricing and their ownership Pounds per month for unlimited
of the local loop, the situation in access Monday to Friday, or 1p
the United Kingdom could al- a minute at all other times.
most have been engineered to For heavier users like my-
inhibit the uptake of the Internet
self, there’s the so-called Any-
by the mass market. Even look-
time Internet option at 34.99
ing at their high-level services,
UK Pounds per month ($58)
BT has subsequently back-
charge for unlimited access at
tracked on the bandwidth avail-
any time of any day. (At this
ability on ADSL – the available
point, my Texan friend started
speeds have been reduced, and
to laugh.) BT’s 24 x 7 Internet
the cost price has been in-
option is thus nearly five times
creased at the same time.
the cost payable in Texas after
BT recently proposed the
A ROUNDUP OF THE LATEST EVERYDAY NEWS
FROM THE WORLD OF ELECTRONICS
LIVE WEB EVENTS

Barry Fox reports on the latest attempts
to improve live action on the Web.
Philips wants to extend E- Geneva and New York on 9 Oc- event through its own Web Site
commerce on the Internet to tober ’99. The UN-backed web- (http://news.bbc.co.uk) and
pay-viewing of special events, site (www.netaid.org) used joined with MTV to broadcast
by exploiting a feature of the 1500 servers at 90 locations the concert live. TV stations in
newly ratified MPEG-4 stan- round the world. 60 countries relayed the event.
dard. MPEG-4 can carry accept- Cisco Systems UNESCO also offered a menu
able pictures and sound at a few (www.cisco.com) and the or- of audio interviews on its Web
tens of Kbps, because it is ganizers designed the system to Site (www.unesco.org).
object-oriented. The stationary handle 125,000 simultaneous
background and moving fore- hits, and one million a minute –
ground are separately coded, ten times the peak rate for Inter- Flash Trap Folly
and re-combined in the PC. net cover of the last Olympics. By Barry Fox
Background ambient sound is Netaid’s target was to break the
separately coded from speech billion hit barrier. After a year’s development
or music. work, a British invention that
Internet news reports after can fool vehicle speed trap
Philips has developed a the event (http://dai- cameras recently went on sale
system that uses MPEG-4 to lynews.yahoo.com) put the for 200 UK Pounds. The Home
provide an overall view of a total number of people who vis- Office says it is “unreliable and
sports pitch or concert stage, ited the site at 2 4 million. Those
¬ ineffective” and anyone who
along with background crowd who did log on had to download tries it risks arrest for
noise. The players and perform- the latest version of the Re- “conspiring to pervert the course
ers only appear on screen, and alPlayer G2 decoding software of justice” and contravening the
the music or commentary are before they could receive live Department of Transport’s Con-
only heard, when the PC-user video and sound struction and Use Regulations.
pays a fee by credit card. Ad- (www.realaudio.com).
vertisements on boards are tai- Photographer Alwyn Morris
lored to the location of the tar- Even with 64Kbps ISDN ac- licensed Backflash of Mansfield
get audience. cess to the Netaid site, with a in Nottingham-shire to manufac-
Pentium 3 processor running at ture and market the device
500MHz and Windows 98, the which he patented a year ago. A
Web Overload postage stamp live pictures fre- slave flash unit by a car’s num-
However, as proved by the quently collapsed into an irregu- ber plate is triggered by any
Netaid live Webcast, the Inter- lar display of frozen and blurred photo flash and reacts so
net has a long way to go before images. Material coded at quickly that it fogs the film or
it can challenge conventional 34Kbps often delivered at an blinds a digital image sensor.
TV, and paying for faster PCs average of 4Kbps, sometimes The slave reacts either to visi-
and ISDN access into the home dropping to zero data rate. Mo- ble flash or infrared as used in
is no answer if the main delivery tion was, at best, very jerky. some new cameras to trap mo-
system is overloaded. This Sound quality remained- torists without their knowledge.
message came over loud and reasonably consistent through- Although Backflash explains
clear from the fuzzy disjointed out. how the slave can be fitted near
video images that arrived from Those who watched on TV a car’s number plates, and
Web cover of the Netaid pop got a much better deal. The proved to work by taking a Po-
concerts held in London, BBC in Britain promoted the laroid photo or pointing an infra-
1(:6
red TV control at it, the com-

pany adds the disclaimer “we do Big Cheese Declares War
not advocate use against traffic
enforcement cameras”. The rec-
ommended use is to protect fa-
mous people against paparazzi
cameras. The Department of
Transport and Highways Agency
reckons that no company could
get rich on selling only to
camera-shy celebrities. “Apart
from breaking the law” says a
Home Office spokeswoman “the
police can still read a fogged
image by reversing its positive/
negative polarity”. When Back-
flash failed to answer questions,
spokeswoman Jane Cheffings
explained that “Those responsi-
ble for the invention felt it inap-
propriate to continue the con-
versation ... you will see from
the media coverage and techni-
cal data this is the information
we are willing to enpart (sic)”.
FREE PIC BASIC

FOR those of you who don’t AS part of the next BBC2 Robot Wars series, a radio-controlled
feel inclined to learn PIC Lan- robot tastefully (?) called The Big Cheese, will be taking part. It is
guage (but you could, easily, if shaped like a large wedge of cheese and is sponsored by dairy com-
you wanted to), there is a Free pany St Ivel. Roger Plant of Plant Engineering in Somerset is the de-
PIC Basic Compiler for Win95/98 signer.
available for download from
Of technical interest (rather than gastronomic) is the fact that the
Leading Edge Technology’s web-
robot is controlled by low power radio modules from Wood & Dou-
site. LET has released this pro-
glas. The ST500 and SR500 synthesized transmitter and receiver
gram to encourage the use of the
used cover the 400-500MHz band and have multichannel capability.
Microchip PIC16Cxx series of mi-
The sensitive receiver and matching 100mW transmitter are ideal for
crocontrollers, along with the
short and medium range applications.
company’s range of low-cost PIC
programmers and related prod- Comments Roger Plant, “Having competed in Robot Wars be-
ucts. The compiler supports PIC fore, we believe we’ve got it right this time”. His previous robot, The
types ’54 to ’57, ’71, ’84 and Mule, was voted the best engineered robot in the last series of Robot
’508/9. Wars.
For more information contact Wood & Douglas Ltd can be contacted at Dept EPE, Lattice
Leading Edge Technology Ltd., House, Baughurst Road, Baughurst, Tadley, Hants RG26 5LP, UK.
Dept EPE, White Rose House, Tel: +44 (0) 118-981-1444
Triq Ix-Xintill, Tarxien, Malta
PLA11. Fax: +44 (0) 118-981-1567
Tel: (00356) 678509 E-mail: info@woodanddouglas.co.uk
Fax: (00356) 667484. Web: www.woodanddouglas.co.uk
E-mail: john-
morr@email.keyworld.net
Web: http://let.cambs.net
1(:6
LOW COST VIRTUAL FREE ETPSOFT

Astonishing – the popular Electronics Princi-
TOOLS ples educational software has been made avail-
able to hobbyists, students and engineers abso-
lutely free!
We have never had occasion to doubt the
sanity of our friends at eptsoft Ltd (who used to
trade as EPT Educational Software) and we can’t
believe it’s slipped now, but free software? . . .
Well, they must have a good reason, as well as
still having the Seasonal Spirit of Christmas (and
the Millennium)!
Electronics Principles on-line electronic
course is a huge “virtual textbook” of electronics
information, containing hundreds of worked exam-
ples, from simple DC theory to PIC microcon-
trollers, over a thousand colorful electronics im-
ages and accompanying text.
It has been explained to us that the company’s
fully interactive software package, Electronics,
Electrical and Mathematics Principles V6, is avail-
able in hundreds of UK colleges, including many
Two low cost single and dual channel PC-based of the top universities, as supporting software for
test instruments have been released by test and electronics courses. Providing Electronics Princi-
measurement specialists Vann Draper Electronics. ples Online free gives students the opportunity to
Both models feature a 20MHz real-time, 40Ms/s dig- access this information as a follow-up to their
ital storage oscilloscope, 20MHz spectrum analyzer, studies outside the classroom.
one second to 999 hours data logger and an AC/DC As an additional service to students and those
voltmeter. wishing to study electronics, eptsoft Ltd is inviting
The virtual instruments are designed to look and colleges and universities to provide website ad-
operate like conventional bench instruments. They dresses to enable quick and easy searches to be
include cursor and on-screen readouts of amplitude, made when investigating UK electronics courses.
frequency, trigger level and time. Results and wave- For more details contact eptsoft Ltd, Dept
forms can be stored either for future reference or EPE, Pump House, Lockram Lane, Witham, Es-
additional analysis. A simple plug-in card operates sex CM8 2BJ, UK.
with a PC under Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or NT.
Tel/Fax: +44 (0) 1376-514008
The SCP201 and SCP202 are priced at 159 and
199 UK Pounds, respectively, and are equally suited E-mail: info@eptsoft.com
to applications in industry, education, production and Web: www.eptsoft.com
service. The software allows the addition of other
instruments in the range to be easily added. Full
demonstration software is available on CD-ROM. Electromail’s
For more information contact Vann Draper Elec-
tronics Ltd., Dept EPE, Stenson House, Stenson, CD-ROM Cat
Derby DE73 1HL, UK. Recently received at the UK HQ is the latest
Tel: +44 (0) 1283-704706 Electromail CD-ROM catalog. As sister company
to RS Components, which is one of the UK’s
largest distributor of electronic, electrical and me-
chanical products, Electromail makes this vast
range available to technical hobbyists and small
businesses. The CD-ROM catalog contains over
107,000 products, as well as an extensive library
1(:6
of datasheets, and access to ics, and that the future produc-

specialized technical helplines. tion of variable capacitors and
The CD-ROM costs 3.99 ball drives is assured. The first
UK Pounds and is available by catalog produced under the new
post, or by phoning or faxing ownership has been received at
with credit card details. Contact our UK HQ. It is well worth ac-
details are: quiring. New ranges of products
are planned.
Electromail, PO Box 33,
Dept EPE, Corby, Northants A longer report appears in
NN17 9EL, UK. the Christmas ’99 issue (No. 62)
of our sister publication Radio
Tel: +44 (0) 1536-204555 Bygones
Fax: +44 (0) 1536-405555. (www.radiobygones.com).
The RS website is at http:// The full story of Jackson’s ear-
rswww.com lier troubles makes harrowing
reading, but the company is
now back on track.
Jackson Tuning
For more details on Jackson
Caps Revived Brothers products, contact
Mainline Electronics, Dept EPE,
It will be a relief to readers
PO Box 235, Leicester LE2
involved in radio receiver de-
9SH, UK.
sign to learn that, after experi-
encing severe financial prob- Tel: +44 (0) 116-277-7648
lems, the renowned Jackson Fax: +44 (0) 116-247-7551
Brothers company has been
purchased by Mainline Electron- E-mail:
sales@mainlinegroup.co.uk
John Becker addresses some of the general points readers have raised. Have
you anything interesting to say? Email us at editor@epemag.com!
WIN A DIGITAL resist experimenting! The LED We’ve passed your CS sug-
will light either way round if con- gestion to our Circuit Surgeon,
MULTIMETER
nected across the collector Alan W, who is at the cutting-
A 3 1/2 digit pocket-sized winding, and produces brighter edge, so to speak!
LCD multimeter, which measures light than across the transistor
AC and DC voltage, DC current, collector/emitter as shown.
and resistance. It can also test However, if you really want to
diodes and bipolar transistors. produce some light, put the LED
Every month we will give a Digital across R1 with the cathode to PIC CHANCE
Multimeter to the author of the TR1 base and the anode to the
best Readout letter. top tap of the inductor, although Dear EPE,
a single LED gets rather hot, Referring to your Nov ’99
and isn’t likely to last long. Five Editorial, I would like to share
* LETTER OF THE or six LEDs in parallel seem to my views on the topic of “Give
work well, without noticeable PICS a Chance”.
MONTH * temperature rise. Here in South Africa, there
The value of R1 doesn’t are so many people who would
INGENIOUS! seem to make much difference, like to play with or learn the PIC
Dear EPE, I suspect that the flyback phase microcontroller that I am often
of the oscillation cycle is using inundated with requests for help
On obtaining EPE Nov ’99, I the LED leakage to feed nega- on the subject. As I am among
wasted no time in trying out the tive regeneration to the transis- the top PIC enthusiasts in SA
One Volt LED from Ingenuity Un- tor’s base, which is not a good (or so everyone reckons), I
limited. Instead of winding the in- idea! An ordinary diode con- know how versatile these de-
ductor myself, I salvaged a nected in inverse parallel with vices are, and believe that your
toroidal mains filter common- the LEDs is required to damp magazine fills a need in PIC. I
mode choke. I am a self- the reverse voltage across know there are people who are
employed computer monitor re- them. This makes no difference “PIC Ignorant’’ but they are nor-
pairer, I have plenty lying around. to the light intensity. mally converted the day they try
The one I picked was because it to do some digital controller of
was simply the easiest to get at As you may have gathered,
this topic is of considerable in- any sort, and end up with
on the pile of scrap chassis, and boards of TTL chips. So please,
just happened to have a pair of terest to me. How about a Cir-
cuit Surgery special on calculat- keep up the PIC projects, as
windings of 23 turns each – near many students here use them
enough! ing windings and toroid core di-
as the basis for university and
mensions, with some guidance
As ZTX650s are not common college assignments.
on how to estimated energy
in my line of work, I picked a de- transfer and how to determine About General Instruments
vice certain to out-perform, a the frequency of operation? selling them since 1982, this is
BD433. Resistor R1 was made up indeed true, as in 1995 I re-
from a 2k2 resistor and 50k pre- I. Field
paired a module coming from
set, so that I could have a twiddle Letchworth, Herts, UK
an AEG washing machine, 10
and observe the result – had you years old, with a PIC1654 (TTL
noticed that if you pulse-drive a That’s what we like to hear version). I even believe that
red LED hard enough it produces – readers taking ideas from pub- General Instruments used the
orange light? lished designs and modifying RISC PIC core in other products
The blocking oscillator pro- them for their own purposes or such as the SP0256 Speech
duced excellent results, I couldn’t whims. More power to you all! Synthesizer (remember this
5HDGRXW
one? – the EE Speech Synthe- with “registry” and other such Wanting to get my hands on
sizer Project for the BBC Micro things that I have tried to steer a PIC, I built a simple parallel
in 1983) and maybe the AY-3- clear of. port programmer. But I didn’t
8910 programmable sound gen- have an assembler, so designed
erator, and also in some GI Ian Gill a set of macros for the PIC in-
chips in the Interface One for via the Net struction set and used the
the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Very, macros to assemble my PIC
very interesting. programs into PIC code. Sim-
Well, that’s the satisfactory
Please keep up the good ple! Who says you can’t make
conclusion to an E-mail discus-
work, your magazine is great, do with what you’ve got?
sion between Ian and our Online
and the only one that bothers to Editor Alan. Ian had queried The problem with PICs is
provide any PIC source code with Alan what I had meant in that they are so darned useful
and/or flow diagrams. my TEACHIN.TXT software file (and cheap). Designing software
when I referred to “creating a is not really any different to do-
Jason Mitchell ing it in hardware, except soft-
directory”. It never occurred to
Gauteng, South Africa ware comes free after you have
me that anyone who had a com-
via the Net spent the time writing it, and
puter would not know what a
directory is. Alan points out that hardware costs hard earned
“newer Windows 98 users will cash, so software should be a
We know full well that the
use the word folder”. part of electronics and not a
great majority of our readers
separate subject. After all you
have an interested in PIC re- Thanks Ian for the praise, are just designing the logic in
lated designs etc. It is not due to thanks Alan for helping Ian (and software instead of wiring up
some whim of mine that Read- other ’98 fans as well perhaps). ICs.
out pages have a lot of letters
But Ian, why should you be To illustrate the point of us-
concerning PICs and other pro-
afraid of “registry”? Or are you ing PICs, I spent a few hours
gramming matters, it’s because
being humorous and making an one evening re-designing the
they are the subjects that most
indirect reference to Marriage Ginormous Display (Dec ’99)
readers write to us about. We
(as in “Registrar of”)? without using any kind of micro-
get far, far more letters than
ever reach these pages and processor. The result was a cir-
PICMAN cuit considerably more com-
when writing on other subjects
plex, what with a UART, Baud
(not necessarily suitable as Dear EPE, rate generator, 4-bit compara-
Readout matters), readers often
As a PICman of long stand- tor, data latch, 7-segment de-
also offer comments on what
ing I would like to contribute my coder/driver, plus glue logic.
we are publishing.
two cents worth to the PIC or And the expense of it all!
Yes, the SP0256 device we not to PIC debate. I would also like to say a
remember well, and I too have few words concerning the PIC
I first found out about PICs
played around with it, it was Micro-Probe (Dec ’99). I have
way back in ‘89 I think, when
sadly missed when it became no doubt it is a useful tool, but it
CMOS PICs first became avail-
obsolete. isn’t the be all and end all of de-
able in the UK. Of course they
were the 16C5X series, where bugging. In most of my pro-
ENVELOPING TEACH-IN previously only NMOS versions gramming errors, the problem is
had been available, which were not that the program loses its
First the exclamation, and way, but algorithms not handling
mask programmed and there-
then the simple explanation: the data correctly, or protocol
fore not suitable for small scale
Big Al . . . thanks for your use. Having obtained and stud- problems between different sec-
help, I have got the Teach-In ied the data sheet and later the tions of code. All caused, of
2000 now and it is MOST won- data book my thoughts were course, by brain failure when
derful . . . er . . . I never knew “Microchip are onto a winner writing the code.
that a directory was the same as here”. And I was right, they My preferred method of de-
a folder ... I always baulked at must be the most popular mi- bugging is to use the simulator
the word “directory” as I always crocontroller on the market. in MPLAB, not to simulate the
thought this to be synonymous
5HDGRXW
whole program but to test sec- mode con codepage pre-
tions of it to ensure it is working pare=((437) C:\ WINDOWS\ I’ve tried the above tech-
correctly. MPLAB is very easy to COMMAND\ ega2.cpi) nique and it appears to work on
use once you get the hang of it, mode con codepage select=437 my system and leave it in the
not as easy to learn as Toolkit but same state as when the system
much better for writing and de- ty2kmenu.exe
booted. Of course, this will only
bugging code. I would suggest work when the system in ques-
anyone who wants to write their make sure the file tion has an AUTOEXEC.BAT
own code should give MPLAB a MENU.BAT is now saved to file since I believe this is not ab-
try. disk. solutely required for Windows
95/98.
Peter Hemsley Whenever you want to run
Somercotes, Alfreton, Derbys the Teach-In 2000 software run The only ideal solution for
via the Net the batch file you just created, today’s modern systems would
i.e. MENU.BAT. be to use a programming envi-
ronment more suited to Win-
Alternatively you could cre-
I admire your initiative and dows such as Visual Basic or,
ate a shortcut to this file on your
agree with your comments. better still, Borland/Inprise Del-
desktop if you are using Win-
As a further comment, no-one phi, for the creation of the
dows 95 or Windows 98.
objects to “yet another opamp Teach-In software.
Hope this helps out others
project” or one that uses any The batch file solution is not
who are having the same prob-
manner of other “standard” de- ideal, I’ll be the first to admit
lems with the software.
vices. To my mind, PICs should that, but it works for me.
be equally regarded as Gordon Murgatroyd
“standard”. It’s not as though via the Net
Since Gordon replied I’ve
readers have to program them
done further tests on my ma-
themselves, all our PIC-based
So I thanked Gordon for the chines (and I’ve recently ac-
projects can have their PICs
useful suggestion, but ex- quired two more, including a
bought as pre-programmed de-
pressed my concern that the Win98 Dell and Win NT Dell).
vices which simply plug straight
user’s system would be Gordon’s solution works on
in, as does any other dual-in-line
changed and not be re-instated some, but not all. There is the
IC.
when Teach-In is exited. Gor- nagging suspicion, though, that
don came back with the follow- the problem is more likely to oc-
ing: cur with machines that have
TEACH-IN DISPLAY been upgraded. Those of mine
which are purely Win 3.1, or
Dear EPE, Yes, I do have a solution. Win 95 or Win 98 are perfectly
Further to the Teach-In 2000 The user needs to add two lines happy with QBasic and with the
“hieroglyphics” question raised in similar to the above mode con old EasyPC I referred to last
Readout Jan ’00: When my lines, which are found in the month. It’s the machines that
screen printed garbage, I rang AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the started off as 3.1 but have been
John Becker who helpfully sug- user’s C: drive and could be upgraded to 95 on which the
gested that the problem may be copied from AUTOEXEC.BAT “hieroglyphs” can be caused to
something to do with the code- using the copy and paste com- occur, either in QBasic or in
page in use by the system. After mands. EasyPC, but never in both for
some experimenting I came up The following are those the same country code settings.
with the following solution: copied verbatim from my AU- I have not yet been able to
In the directory where you TOEXEC.BAT file: reproduce the problem in the
installed the Teach-In 2000 soft- purely Win 95 and Win 98 ma-
ware, create a batch file called chines. The Win 98 machine
mode con codepage pre-
MENU.BAT with the following does not recognize codepage
pare=((850) C:\ WINDOWS\
commands in the file: commands, nor does one Win
COMMAND\ ega.cpi)
95 machine at EPE HQ. (The
mode con codepage select=850
5HDGRXW
Win NT I’ve not been able to ac- all the copies he needs to sell. copier and at the same time
cess yet – it came from my wife’s For a single instrument, it transferring to acetate. This
employers when they upgraded to sounds like four John Williams worked well providing the copy
later machines and requires an and just as professional. quality was good. It was re-
entry password, which has still to quired at times to double the
The piracy of “pop” music is
be advised!) design back to back to block the
probably extensive, and the
UV light during exposure, al-
I’m hoping for more reader urge to stem it is understand-
though with some adjustment to
feedback on this curious hiero- able. But I believe that technol-
the copier settings, one copy
glyphs situation. ogy is its own worst enemy,
could be used. This may save
much like a knife blade, which
the cost of special ink or a new
is all cutting edge and no han-
PIRATE-PROOF CDs printer.
dle. There will always be some-
Dear EPE, one who finds a way to misuse Also, I would like to congrat-
it. ulate you on the merger with
I’ve just decided to drop my ETI. I had concerns that the
fortnightly computer magazine in In the meantime, I do not
competition to produce designs
favor of EPE. Yours has a lot accept clumsy attempts to pro-
for all standards of enthusiast
more interesting stuff in it. I’ve tect “intellectual property” which
would be reduced with less
been following the series on Os- prevent me from being enrap-
competition, and that you might
cillators (Jul-Dec ’99) and, as get- tured by Clannad while reading
go completely into PIC design,
ting a copy off the counter was through some of the banal E-
which I feared you were near-
not always possible, a subscrip- mail I get.
ing. I had hoped that you would
tion was the only choice. An interesting thought here. introduce more stripboard de-
The news item on page 874 If they don’t bother to warn the signs and projects using more
of the Nov ’99 issue, where the purchaser that the CD won’t components rather than a pro-
company C-Dilla are planning to work on the PC’s hi-fi system grammed IC. The starter pro-
launch a copy protection system, and he/she takes it home and jects are excellent examples,
is in itself no problem for me. plugs it in, hoping to hear their and long may they continue.
However, if the report is correct favorite blasting from the speak-
and I will not be able to play mu- ers, and all he/she gets is a Martin Smith
sic CDs on my PC, I shall be “disc faulty” message and the Banff, Scotland
more than a little upset. CD rejected, will they be able to
get their money back? Can they
I purchased a high- Points well noted, Martin.
complain to the trading stan-
performance multi-media PC al- Thank you.
dards that the CD was not fit for
most a year ago, and took great
the purpose it was purchased? In my published reply to N.
pains to ensure that one of its
many capabilities was to play Dyson, I said that my new ink-
Arthur Lawrance jet printer produced excellent
stereo CDs to delight my ears Poole, Dorset
while I used it to perform other acetate images for use with UV
tasks. Some CDs even have a exposure onto photosensitive
computer track included, such as Anyone care to add to this PCB material. I now have to add
some Classic FM cover disks. potentially interesting debate? a caution to that comment. Hav-
ing run out of the original Epson
My system is perfectly capa- ink supplied with the printer, I
ble of copying CDs I believe, but PCB PRODUCTION made the mistake of replacing it
as I don’t play any of the fancy
Dear EPE, with a much cheaper brand, to
games, and my son believes that
my regret!
his Amega is a better computer I hope this may help N.
anyway, there isn’t even the Dyson (Sep ’99 Readout) re- This ink slowly spread out
temptation. The copy facility does garding PCB production: Whilst across the acetate, refusing to
have its uses though. A friend is a at college, the design package I dry adequately (although im-
musician who plays his own com- preferred printed from a dot- ages on paper were perfect).
positions on a “Chapman Stick”, matrix in either 1:1 scale for The results were terrible and
and gets them professionally preview purposes or 2:1 for pro- required a great deal of touch-
recorded on a CD master. My duction quality. The latter meant up work on the final exposed
machine then provides him with reducing by 50% using a photo- and etched board to make them
5HDGRXW
usable. I have now reverted to been able to purchase any of the Zimbabwean Government.
Epson’s own ink! the above units ready-made at It’s now four years since I
a reasonable cost. started reading your magazine. I
Yes, many people find that
live 290km away from the capi-
stripboard provides a good con- Roy Hancock tal city Harare but am getting
structional medium for one-offs. Witheridge, Tiverton, Devon my copy of EPE on time from a
However, I prefer to use PCBs, general dealer shop, which is
not only because I have the facili- supplied by a distribution com-
ties, but also because I feel that Yes, Roy, there is much pany based in Harare. It is also
the chances of making a con- that can be achieved by hobby- sold by street newspaper ven-
structional error are much re- ist electronics enthusiasts with- dors and in bookshops. There
duced, all the connections being out becoming involved in high- are no Government restrictions
pre-ordained! tech designs and control sys- on EPE.
tems. We applaud your resis-
tance to those who said other- Innocent Mutasa
MORE INGENUITY wise, and commend you on Masvingo, Zimbabwe
Dear EPE, your ingenuity.
I have enjoyed reading EPE We must, though, caution Thank you for the reassur-
for a considerable time, though readers about attempting to ance and your lengthy letter, of
my knowledge of electronics is connect non-approved elec- which the above is a brief edited
very limited. Many people told me tronic equipment to the public extract. We hope you will under-
that modern electronics with its service telephone network. Do- stand that we cannot publish
complexity was becoming beyond ing so is against the law. We
the amateur. However, I became your political comments in EPE,
assume that Roy used his auto- even though you obviously feel
interested in the possibility of us- dialler with a private telephone
ing various simple devices. The passionately about your country.
system that was not subject to
first unit I built was an auto- legal requirements.
dialler, and a last number redial
on the handset.
This worked well so I linked it
EPE IN ZIMBABWE
to a PIR sensor as a burglar Dear EPE,
alarm. This has one advantage In his letter (Readout Sep
over most auto-diallers in that ’99), Mr Cornish, who for an un-
when activated you can listen in. I known time was a resident here
also designed a simple unit for in Zimbabwe, said he had prob-
my camera, with PIR for taking lems in getting copies of EPE
wild-life photographs. I had not due to restrictions imposed by
with DAVID BARRINGTON the bridge rectifier is sold in
packs of five.
Some Component Suppliers for EPE Online Con- The PIC used in this project
must be the 10MHz version. For
structional Articles those who would like a ready-
programmed PIC, one is
Antex Greenweld (UK) available from Magenta
Web: www.antex.co.uk Fax: +44 (0) 1992-613020 Electronics for the inclusive
CPC Preston (UK) Email: greenweld@aol.com price of 5.90 UK Pounds
Tel: +44 (0) 1772-654455 Web: (overseas readers add 1 UK
www.greenweld.co.uk Pound for postage). Our
EPE Online Store and Library understanding is that they will
Web: www.epemag.com Maplin (UK)
Web: www.maplin.co.uk be using the F84 which is pin
Electromail (UK) compatible with the F83. For
Tel: +44 (0) 1536-204555 Magenta Electronics (UK) those who wish to program their
Tel: +44 (0) 1283-565435 own PICs, the software is
ESR (UK) Web: available for Free download
Tel: +44 (0) 191-2514363 www.magenta2000.co.uk from the EPE Online Library at
Fax: +44 (0) 191-2522296
Microchip www.epemag.com
Email: sales@esr.co.uk
Web: www.esr.co.uk Web: www.microchip.com The printed circuit board is
Rapid Electronics (UK) available from the EPE Online
Farnell (UK)
Tel: +44 (0) 1206-751166 Store (code 7000251) at
Tel: +44 (0) 113-263-6311
www.epemag.com
Web: www.farnell.com RF Solutions (UK)
Gothic Crellon (UK) Tel: +44 (0) 1273-488880
Tel: +44 (0) 1743-788878 Web: www.rfsolution.co.uk Find It
RS (Radio Spares) (UK) Most of the components
Web: www.rswww.com needed to construct the Find It
project should be readily
available parts. The specified
LED used in the model is a
PICVideo Cleaner with a UK 240V 50Hz power “high brightness” type, which
supply – see the article for more was found to give better results
As the design for the Video
details.) than the standard variety. The
Cleaner project is based around
a printed circuit board (PCB), Like most of the “specials” high brightness types are now
the choice of components will for this project, the plastic box common shelf lines, however,
need to be selected to fit on the (code 223-440) and metal watch out, some LEDs may
PCB. Also, a couple of the socket support brackets (146- have a narrow viewing angle
semiconductors are a bit special 318) also came from the above which could cause “off-center”
and not readily available. company. The right-angle viewing problems.
SCART sockets should be You may have to search
Dealing with the 3VA mains
available from most component through the various resistor
transformer first. This was
suppliers. ranges to track down the high
purchased from Farnell (code
141-471). You could use a Turning to the value ones that are needed to
different transformer provided semiconductors, Farnell make up the two series resistors
you can “hardwire” it to the supplied the LM1881 video sync that form the “frequency”
PCB. (Also, as was noted in the separator (code 410-536), the resistor R5. It looks as though
article, please remember that AD810 low-power video amp the author found his amongst
this transformer was selected (code 295-127) and the the 0 6W and 1W (high voltage)
¬
based on the project being used 1KAB10E 1 2A 40V bridge

¬ metal film ranges. If difficulties
rectifier (code 371-208). Note should arise finding these, try
6KRS 7DON
Maplin (codes M10M and The voltage reference type SI7660 voltage converter listed
V4M7). ICL8069 is produced in metal by Maplin, code YY75S. They
Most component suppliers cased and plastic encapsulated also supplied the little sprung,
should be able to offer a versions. Although the prototype momentary action (biased-off),
suitable miniature type light model shows the metal can footswitch pedal, code DU99H.
dependent resistor. The one in version, the plastic package Once again, you will have
the model came from the above seems to be the one most to cut a standard piece of
company, code AZ83E. widely stocked, so we have stripboard down to size for this
Readers who have difficulty included the pinout details (top project.
obtaining the miniature LDR views) for both versions in the
could use the old favorite article. If readers do experience
ORP12 type, but a larger case any problems sourcing the 8069 Teach-In 2000 (Part 4)
may be needed. Also, resistor locally, the plastic version is A small “interlink” printed
R1 may need to be reduced in listed by Maplin, code circuit board, for the Computer
value as explained in the text. YH39N.The small stripboard will Interface – Experimental 4
need to be cut to size from a exercise, has been added to the
The micropower 7611 larger standard piece. Finally, it
opamp has been used in past components for this month’s
is most important that an in- installment of Teach-In 2000
projects and should be line fuse/holder is included in
obtainable from most series. This PCB is available
the positive supply lead if the from the EPE Online Store
component suppliers. Finally, unit is to be used in a car,
the small printed circuit board is (code 7000253) at
caravan, boat etc. www.epemag.com
available from the EPE Online
Store (code 7000252) at For details of special
www.epemag.com Easy-Typists Tape Teach-In component packs
Controller readers should contact:
Voltage Monitor Not too much can go wrong ESR Electronic
when ordering parts for the Components – Hardware/Tools
The LM393N 8-pin dual
Easy-Typist Tape Controller and Components Pack.
comparator called for in the
Voltage Monitor, this month’s project, except perhaps locating Magenta Electronics –
“starter project”, appears to be the 8-pin voltage converter IC. Multimeter and components, Kit
stocked by most component Of course, you are left on your 879.
suppliers. however, the voltage own regarding selection of a
FML Electronics (Tel +44
reference chip could cause microcassette machine.
(0) 1677-425840) – Basic
some concern. We can only find the component sets.
N. R. Bardwell (Tel +44 (0)
114 255-2886) – Digital
Multimeter special offer.

Epemag 2000-02

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9ROXPH  ,VVXH 

VOLTAGE MONITOR - by Robert Penfold 95

PIC VIDEO CLEANER - by Mike Delaney 101

INGENUITY UNLIMITED - hosted by Alan Winstanley 114

FIND IT - DON’T LOSE IT! - by Terry de Vaux-Balbirnie 109

SERIES AND FEATURES

TECHNOLOGY TIMELINES - 1 Days of Yore 118

INTERFACE - by Robert Penfold 129

CIRCUIT SURGERY - by Alan Winstanley 132

TEACH-IN 2000 - 4 - Diodes and LEDs by John Becker 137

NET WORK - THE INTERNET PAGE surfed by Alan Winstanley 151

REGULARS AND SERVICES

READOUT - John Becker addresses general points arising. 157

Copyright © 2000 Wimborne Publishing Ltd and EPE

AUTOMATIC TRAIN SIGNAL

PARKING WARNING SYSTEM

Controlling the Forrest Mims

Bebop to the Bebop BYTES Back

9LVLW WKH (3( 2QOLQH 6WRUH DW

ZZZHSHPDJFRP DQG SODFH \RXU RUGHU WRGD\

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

Fig.1. Simplified block diagram for the Easy-Typist.

ceding phrase to be typed before playback is resumed

by a press of the footswitch.

The whole process is simple, rapid and inexpen-

sive to implement since it will work with the cheapest of

microcassette recorders. It can also be used with any

Although the intended use is easier typing, other

applications for this project will include anything where

audio information has to be dished out in discrete

chunks with the user operating a switch of some kind to

continue to the next section. Audio presentations and

displays, operating instructions and perhaps drivers’

navigation information would all be practical uses.

The direction lists generated by programs such as

“Autoroute” would be ideal for it. Items such as instru-

ment readings or test notes could be made directly to a

recorder and written up easily later. No doubt readers

will be able to think of many more applications.

As mentioned, microcassette dEasy-Typist linked

to a microcassette, earpiece, and the footswitch.

ictation recorders are now readily available and

very cheap with some models costing under 20 UK

Pounds. Provided the recorder has earphone and ex-

ternal power sockets and operates from a 3V supply (2

x AAA batteries is common) it can be used with this

any guarantee in force will not be affected.

A block diagram of the Easy-Typist is shown in

Fig.1. The signal from the recorder’s earphone socket

tored by an amplifier with a voltage gain of about

The amplifier is used because at normal listening

trol of the frequency response, which improves circuit

The amplifier drives a comparator. Each time the

Stripboard 0.1in matrix, size 14

risk to the ICs. D? 21DD5BI 2!

inserted. When powered again

appear across pin 4 and pin 7 of @<!

IC1’s socket, pins 4 and 8 of

If this checks out, IC1 can D9@

be plugged in. With no input,  DB!

negative as the reference

Completed Easy-Typist showing the

IRU +REE\LVW DQG 6WXGHQWV

9ROXPH ,VVXH

ZZZHSHPDJFRP DQG SODFH \RXU RUGHU WRGD\

be plugged in. With no input, DB!

ZZZHSHPDJFRP DQG SODFH \RXU RUGHU WRGD\

ZZZHSHPDJFRP DQG SODFH \RXU RUGHU WRGD\

35,&,1* CD-ROM (Hobbyist/Student): $70 US Dollars (plus S&H)

Mini Disc Optical Interface Link-Up @?G5B D?DH!'&

position D3. (See also Panel 4.4). [ 4!

you are using here). A “normal” @8?D?49?45 <54