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Kinsner's Home What's New Repository 1999 New Systems Week of 99 Oct. 18
REPOSITORY OF NEW SYSTEMS:
1999 OCTOBER 18; VOL. 1.05

A PIC Simulator

The Virtual PIC is a shareware that allows writing and executing assembly language programs for the PIC16F84 microcontroller on-screen. It shows what happens inside the PIC as each instruction is executed at each program cycle (the ALU, all the registers, and the outputs), and even the order of operation of each instruction (effectively the internal metacycle executions) as the command is fetched from memory, sent to the instruction register and executed.
[Darren Sawicz has alerted me to this simulator]

A PIC Development System

The Mac PIC 1.0.1 is a PIC development system for the Macintosh. It has an editor, multi-pass assembler, disassembler, simulator and programmer for the PIC family of microcontrollers, including almost all PIC12, PIC14000, PIC16, and PIC17 devices. This version includes the PIC 16F84 but not the PIC16F87x family.
[Alexis Denis has alerted me to this software]

0.18-micron FPGAs

Xilinx has announced production and shipment of the industry's first 0.18-micron field programmable gate array (FPGA). The device has 2 million gates of logic with a total of 150 million transistors. It supports multiple gigabit-per-second I/O bandwidth and has a 266-MHz double data rate memory performance.
The FPGA is part of Xilinx's Virtex-E FPGA series. The introduction of a 3 million-gate FPGA, designated XCV3200EO, is now slated for the second quarter of 2000.

$25 Web Server

Atmel's single-chip microprocessor can be hooked up to an off-the-shelf PC network card to create a web server for an embedded application. This circuit is so simple that it can be build it in an evening.

A list of links for related TCP/IP and embedded systems may also be useful.

Follow Up on Nortel's 80 Gbits/s

Further to the previous article on Nortel Networks' 80 Gbits/s on single wavelength, using distributed Raman fiber amplification and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing, or DWDM, a few more details might draw your attention. Nortel's data speed is 8 times better than the previous 10 gigabits/second. The newest commercial fiber systems pack 160 "colors" of light, each "color" carrying 10 gigabits/second of data, into each individual glass fiber.

CDs and Microwave Ovens Do NOT Coexist

When a compact disk (CD) is put into a microwave oven, not much is left after 10 seconds. A fire may start a few seconds later.

[Fractal Disk]
The above picture is a composite from two scans of the recordable side of a CD-R74 Maxell disk. The disk was oriented horizontally and was left in the microwave oven for 10 seconds. (A vertical position of the disk produces similar results.) Within a second of applying power, the disk flashes, and the discharges take place very rapidly. The fractal-like ramifications resemble dielectric discharges.

[Martin Stadler gave me the two disks.]

Computer Microscope

[USB Microscope]
Intel and Matel introduced a $99 (US) QX3 microscope that ha a USB connection. The QX3 has software-controlled, variable brightness lights both below and above the stage, and comes with software that makes it a snap to take photomicrographs, enhance them, and put them into "shows." And it allows you to take automatic time-lapse photomicrographs and will assemble them into movies. Magnification 10 to 200.

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