

Introduction to Microcontrollers - Part I - shoeless
http://www.renesas.com/edge_ol/engineer/07/index.jsp

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johnohara
By way of introduction -- from Wikipedia:

 _NEC Electronics Corporation was separated from NEC in 2002 as a new
semiconductor company. NEC Laboratories America, Inc. (NEC Labs) started in
November, 2002 as a merger of NEC Research Institute (NECI) and NEC USA’s
Computer and Communications Research Laboratory (CCRL). NEC built the Earth
Simulator Computer (ESC), the fastest supercomputer in the world from 2002 to
2004, and since produced the NEC N343i in 2006._

 _On April 23, 2009, Renesas Technology Corp and NEC Electronics Corp struck a
basic agreement to merge by around April 2010. On April 1, 2010 NEC
Electronics and Renesas Technology merged forming Renesas Electronics which is
set to be fourth largest semiconductor company according to iSuppli published
data._

The full index to this series is here:
<http://www.renesas.com/edge_ol/engineer/index.jsp>

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simcop2387
I will note that their suggestion of using an FPGA to do the flashing LED is
far far far more complicated than it needs to be. Two AND gates, a decade
counter and a timer are all you'd really need to make it flash after hitting
the button. Adding a reset could be as simple as another button or another
counter depending on how you want to go about it (or if you get creative, i
bet it could be done with a JK flipflop).

Though adding the MCU (or an FPGA) does allow you do far more than just
flashing it at some interval, you can also make it fade in and out far easier,
and a number of other things like that.

~~~
eliben
You can flash LEDs in an even easier manner with a capacitor and a couple of
transistors, or just a single 555 chip ;-)

~~~
simcop2387
They wanted the behavior of flashing a set time after the button is pushed,
I'd use a 555 for the flashing myself though :)

------
gggggggg
For all those recently into the Arduino posts on HN, this seems like a nice
start (starting at lesson 1) into electronics.
<http://www.renesas.com/edge_ol/engineer/01/index.jsp>

