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General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

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Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#11

Post by kragen »

mikepurvis wrote: post #9
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened way before. RFID cards for disposable public transportation tickets or those music greeting cards.

At a certain point it's more about the semantics of what a "computer" is. I don't know if I'd count an ASIC from a musical greeting card, though; and even within general purpose devices, microcontrollers vs microprocessors are typically delineated by the presence of an MMU.

the 6502, 8080, z80, 8085, 8086, 65816, 68000, and 68010 were universally described as microprocessors, not microcontrollers, but did not have mmus built in (and of these only the 68010 could easily have one bolted on, as i understand it)

i think typically the thing that distinguished these from microcontrollers like the 8031, 8051, 8748, 8751, pic1650, etc., is that the microcontrollers had program memory built into them, either rom, eprom, or, starting in the 90s, flash. so they didn't need to be booted, they didn't need program ram, and in fact for a lot of applications they didn't need any external ram at all

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#12

Post by [deleted] »

mikepurvis wrote: post #9
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened way before. RFID cards for disposable public transportation tickets or those music greeting cards.

At a certain point it's more about the semantics of what a "computer" is. I don't know if I'd count an ASIC from a musical greeting card, though; and even within general purpose devices, microcontrollers vs microprocessors are typically delineated by the presence of an MMU.

[deleted]

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#13

Post by pi-rat »

082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Once upon a time, on USENET, someone had a .sig that predicted one day computers would be cheap enough they'd come in cereal boxes and we'd throw them away. That day appears to have arrived.

There’s been generic microcontrollers (usually single shot programmable) available for less than 3 cent per mcu for half a decade already. Check out Padauk and similar MCUs.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#14

Post by jdsully »

Scoundreller wrote: post #8
yau8edq12i wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst offenders right now might be disposable vapes. I saw some sold with effing lcd screens built-in. For a disposable piece of crap.

The rechargeable lithium batteries in those really doesn't fit the "lithium shortage" and "we don't have enough battery capacity to build an EV for everyone" narrative

One car has 4,500 cells - bigger cells than most of the vapes. So it really is a matter of scale.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#15

Post by markstos »

Scoundreller wrote: post #8
yau8edq12i wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst offenders right now might be disposable vapes. I saw some sold with effing lcd screens built-in. For a disposable piece of crap.

The rechargeable lithium batteries in those really doesn't fit the "lithium shortage" and "we don't have enough battery capacity to build an EV for everyone" narrative

It does if the vape makers have an underpriced lithium source and don’t care about the pending lithium shortage.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#17

Post by marssaxman »

Seems like a small step up from the ubiquitous WS2812, an LED with an onboard controller handling PWM and one-wire communication.

Years ago, before animated LED christmas lights were readily available, I hand-made such a string out of ATtiny85 controllers, soldered onto bicolor red/green LEDs, one controller per light. A little bit of C and an evolving animation algorithm recycled from a previous project yielded a pleasing quasi-rhythmic effect. It was absurdly non-economical, but felt like a glimpse of the future.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#18

Post by userbinator »

sam_bristow wrote: post #4

It might be a myth, but I seem to remember the ASICs used to flicker older LED designs were often repurposed from audio greeting cards. The light was actually just Happy Birthday playing through an LED or bulb rather than a speaker.

Not a myth. I clearly remember watching a YouTube video where this was discovered, only a few years ago, but of course the uselessness of search engines these days has made it impossible to find now.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#19

Post by exe34 »

jdsully wrote: post #14
Scoundreller wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rechargeable lithium batteries in those really doesn't fit the "lithium shortage" and "we don't have enough battery capacity to build an EV for everyone" narrative

One car has 4,500 cells - bigger cells than most of the vapes. So it really is a matter of scale.

How many cars does one smoke in a year though?
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