Monthly Archives: April 2017

AVR basics: reading and writing GPIO pins

Once you’ve set up a pin, or a whole port’s worth of pins, as inputs or outputs, it’s time to start writing and reading values. This series is part of my learning process and I hope it will help others who, like me, are embarking on projects such as programming AVR chips. The way I learn things is to write… Read more »

AVR basics: ports and direction registers

Pretty much the first thing anyone does with a microcontroller, whether it’s a naked AVR chip or something fancy like an Arduino, is flash an LED. This series is part of my learning process and I hope it will help others who, like me, are embarking on projects such as programming AVR chips. The way I learn things is to… Read more »

Computing with arthritis – keyboards, mice and more

My doctor keeps telling me to stop typing. As a professional writer and enthusiastic coder that’s not going to happen any time soon. But it’s true that, for me, typing is a pain – literally. I have osteoarthritis in all the joints of both hands (and many other places) so constantly hitting keys is not a joyful experience. What I… Read more »

Building a 6502 computer – a place to start

We all have to start somewhere. Almost as soon as I’d decided I would build a 6502-based micro I realised that the learning curve is steep. It’s not like embarking on a new programming language where you can write a ‘Hello world’ program and go from there. When building a computer, there are many pieces that have to come together and… Read more »

Mechanical keyboards: Plum 87 RGB

Topre switches are a divisive issue in the mechanical keyboard community. To some they are the apogee of keyboard switch development. To others they are rubber domes with hype. Topre switches combine the slider mechanism of mechanical switches such as Cherry MX with a spring plus rubber dome capacitive actuator. So some people like to refer to them as ‘semi-mechanical’…. Read more »