I've been very fortunate in that I have been able to have three somewhat overlapping and very interesting careers. I began my working life as a math teacher, returned to school to become a psychologist, and ultimately returned to the field of education as a microcomputer teacher and consultant. Now that I am retired, I am even more fortunate - I finally have the time to pursue some of my personal interests and hobbies! I have been tinkering with electronics and microcomputers for the past 35 years, and when I retired, one of the first things I did was to enroll in the local Community College as an Electrical Engineering Technology major. It took me five years (part-time) to complete the program, but I learned a tremendous amount that is helping me to design and construct bigger and better playthings. I have been interested in electronics since I was a kid, and computer programming since I first learned about it. Back in the dark ages (before the Apple IIe), I built my first "personal computer" from a kit and learned to program it in machine language. If you don't know what that is, you're lucky - it involves coding each computer instruction as a hexadecimal number and entering it into the computer's memory by hand - tedious, to say the least!
Several years ago, I discovered the PICAXE line of microcontrollers. They are much less expensive and easier to program than all the other microcontrollers I have come across. They are very popular in England and other parts of the world, but still relatively unknown here in the United States. Now that I have the time to do so, I am making it my mission to "spread the word" about these amazing processors.
Of course, this site is one means of doing so, but I have also been writing PICAXE-related magazine articles for the past few years. Currently, I'm doing a regular Bi-monthly column (The PICAXE Primer) for Nuts and Volts Magazine. If you find PICAXE programming as fascinating as I do, you may want to subscribe to Nuts and Volts - I'm just beginning to explore the capabilities of the new (and very powerful) PICAXE-28X1 in a series of installments that will focus on interfacing it (or any PICAXE processor) with various I/O peripherals. The following is a list of my articles that have been published thusfar:
PICAXE Primer Articles in Nuts and Volts Magazine
- Introduction to the PICAXE-08M - December 2007.
- Playing Music on the 08M - February 2008.
- Introduction to Stripboards - April 2008.
- "Faux" PC Boards - June 2008.
- Build the PICAXE IR Multi-Board - August 2008.
- Programming the PICAXE IR Multi-Board - October 2008.
- Experimenting with the IR Multi-Board - December 2008.
- Implementing a Serial Data Link with the IR Multi-Board - February 2009.
- Taming Unruly LCDs, Part I - April 2009.
- Taming Unruly LCDs, Part II - June 2009.
- Programming Your Serialized LCD Display - August 2009.
- Using the AXE027 USB Programming Adapter - October 2009.
- Interfacing 7-Segment LED Displays - December 2009.
- Using the MAX7219 LED Display Driver - February 2010.
- Programming the MAX7219 LED Display Driver - April 2010.
- Using The AxMate Power and Programming Adapter - June 2010.
- Introducing Tex and Rex, the IR twins - August 2010.
- Implementing an ADC Keypad - October 2010.
- Introduction to the PICAXE-18M2 - December 2010.
- Experimenting with Touch-sensitive Keypads - February 2011.
- Experimenting with Capacitive-touch Sensors - April 2011.
- Introducing the PICAXE AXE401 Shield Base - June 2011.
- Using EEPROMs to Store and Retrieve Data - August 2011.
- Introducting the New PICAXE M2-Class Microcontrollers - October 2011.
- Upgrading our Serial LCD Project - December 2011.
SERVO TankBot Articles in SERVO Magazine
- Meet the SERVO TankBot - September 2008.
- Taking Control of your SERVO TankBot - December 2008.
- Emancipating your SERVO TankBot - March 2009.
- Emancipating your SERVO TankBot, Redux - May 2009.
- Adding "Sonar" Capabilities to your SERVO Tankbot - July 2008.
- Adding an LCD to your SERVO TankBot - September 2009.
- LCD Software for your SERVO TankBot, Redux - November 2009.
Other PICAXE Articles
- Robot's Little Helper - SERVO Magazine, October 2006.
- Getting Started with PICAXE Microcontrollers, Part I - Nuts and Volts Magazine, January 2007.
- Getting Started with PICAXE Microcontrollers, Part II - Nuts and Volts Magazine, February 2007.
- Getting Started with PICAXE Microcontrollers, Part III - Nuts and Volts Magazine, March 2007.
- M-Bot, Part I - SERVO Magazine, September 2007.
- M-Bot, Part II - SERVO Magazine, October 2007.