#Thinkgeek big red button software

I might even replace my door bell with one. Wire this sucker up in your garage instead and you have a very cool looking and very useful garage door opener. Realistically whos computer not suffering from hardware problems spontaneously crashes anymore? The switch looks pretty dumb sitting on a desk. If some future 128-bit CPU has the ability to be programmed just by talking to it, and it's cheaper than an LED, then why not?

Using a chip that has more internal resources than the original IBM PC to control a few LEDs is not rare now. Will we ever use a 32-bit microprocessor to control a single LED? Don't laugh too hard. This trend will continue as very fast, (50 MegaHertz system clocks, fast for microcontrollers), very powerful 32-bit microcontrollers with large internal memory continue to fall in price. It's a whole new frame of reference for electronic designers.

#Thinkgeek big red button software

It does require software skills that weren't needed previously. The point is that now it is cheaper to effect a hardware solution with an ultra-cheap microcontroller than it was in the 20th century to do with cheap 555 timers coupled with resistors and caps or to do with TTL clusters. Be guided in your code by the idea that just as the LED is being raised from its inherent chaotic darkness, so too is man raised from his internal chaotic darkness by the direction and focused energy of Jesus, God, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Great Spirit, or Whoever (grammar goblins, note the proper capitalization of the indirect pronoun that refers to the deity). Then write the code that gently awakens the LED from its inner darkness. Get an 8-pin AVR (like the Tiny11) or even a 6-pin PIC microprocessor for less than 50 cents US, preferably one that is in a new surface-mount package much smaller than the LED and fits underneath it. Now it's far cheaper to use a microcontroller with pulse-width modulation to guide the LED into it luministic destiny.

Real men don't fool around anymore with digital potentiometers and op-amps when it comes down to the nitty-gritty task of controlling an LED.