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Build Your Own Combat Robot

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262 <strong>Build</strong> <strong>Your</strong> <strong>Own</strong> <strong>Combat</strong> <strong>Robot</strong><br />

Feature Basic<br />

Stamp 2<br />

Table 12-1 shows a list of some specifications to several different types of<br />

microcontrollers. The number of input and output (I/O) lines represent the total<br />

number of individual control lines a microcontroller can have. This list combines<br />

both digital and analog I/O together. Digital I/O represents a data line where the<br />

input and output values are either 5 volts or 0 volts. This is to represent a binary 1<br />

ora0—or, in other words, and on or an off state. An analog I/O signal line represents<br />

a line that can interpret a variable anywhere between 0 and 5 volts.<br />

A microcontroller’s processor speed is the actual clock speed. Some<br />

microcontrollers require the four clock cycles to execute a single command, while<br />

other microcontrollers can execute a command in a single clock cycle. The time<br />

required to execute a command doesn’t represent the time required to execute a line<br />

of programming code. When you write a program, each line will use many different<br />

internal commands that the microcontroller understands; thus, program speeds are<br />

always slower than clock speeds of a microcontroller. The specification that is really<br />

important is the execution time, which is the number of program instructions executed<br />

per second. Notice in Table 12-1 the difference in execution times when compared<br />

to the clock speeds of the microcontroller.<br />

For programming space, the common term that is used to represent how much<br />

“memory” a microcontroller has is electrically erasable programmable read only<br />

memory (EEPROM), which is the number of - kilobytes of programming memory<br />

available on the microcontroller. In the microcontroller world, memory represents<br />

how much variable space the program can keep track of, not the amount of<br />

Basic<br />

Stamp<br />

2SX<br />

Basic<br />

Stamp 2P<br />

Basic<br />

Stamp 1<br />

BasicX-24 OOPic BrainStem Handy<br />

Board<br />

I/O Lines 18 18 12 8 16 31 25 30 38<br />

Processor<br />

speed,<br />

MHz<br />

Execution<br />

time<br />

EEPRPOM<br />

Kbytes<br />

20 50 20 4 8 20 40 2 8<br />

Bot<br />

Board<br />

4000 10000 12000 2000 65000 2000 9000 N/A N/A<br />

2 16 16 256 bytes 32 4 16 32 2<br />

Multitasking No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes<br />

Package,<br />

inches<br />

24-pin<br />

DIP<br />

24-pin<br />

DIP<br />

24-pin<br />

DIP<br />

14-pin<br />

SIP<br />

24-pin<br />

DIP<br />

Language* Basic Basic Basic Basic Basic Basic, C,<br />

and Java<br />

TABLE 12-1 Microcontroller Comparison �<br />

2×3.5 2.5×2.5 4.25×3.15 2.2×3.2<br />

TEA C Basic, C

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