[GreenKeys] UART (sort of like) in software on Arduino

[Harold Hallikainen]

On Sun, December 12, 2021 11:20 am, steve bennett wrote:
>  Harold,
> "It would be possible to do this with software delay loops, but then
> thecode blocks while transmitting or receiving characters."
> I think I follow what you are saying.Yes the problem with my Arduino
> Seeburg reader was that I had to use two Arduinos.One dedicated to
> listening for incoming bits and a second one to play MP3s.Otherwise I
> could not receive new input while a song was playing.
> Not a problem. Arduinos are cheap.I used one dedicated to listening for
> song selections and it sent that song number to the secondArduino to
> actually play it.Any song selections sent while a song was playing piled
> up in the UART buffer.If I remember the buffer could hold about a dozen
> song selections before loosing data.Good enough for a man cave project.
> -Steve

That's great! One of them is just a UART (implemented in software) with a
FIFO. On some projects where the microcontroller did not have enough
UARTs, I used a Maxim UART with an SPI interface. The Maxim part had a 16
byte FIFO. I was able to poll it since the main loop was fast enough that
the FIFO did not overflow.

It's all fun stuff!

Harold


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