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Hardware hacking - Circuit diagram for LXF Arduino Simon Project

In the past I used to do quite a bit of hobby electronics. I have not had time to do much in recent years but my enthusiasm has now been rekindled in response to a Arduino electronics series that Linux Format Magazine has recently started.

There have been a number of changes in hobby electronics in recent years. It used to be about lots of discrete components and small integrated circuits (ICs) including the infamous 555 timer. Now more circuits are being created using programmable controllers which were just too expensive for hobby activities in the past.

The Arduino hardware is under a creative commons license, there are libraries under the LGPL and the Java environment is released under the GPL. As the device is programmed using the Java programming environment it works on Linux.

The first article was in LXF 100. Due to a large response including my own reply (Electronics with Linux email), they are now starting a longer series.

The second article is in LXF 103 (March 2008). The project creates a Simon type electronic game. The only thing about the article is that there is no circuit diagram. It describes the connections between the various component but is not particularly easy to visualise. I have therefore created a circuit diagram for this months project. The diagram is fairly crude, it's just been created using OpenOffice Draw.

Circuit Diagram for Arduino Simon game (LXF 103)

I have also encountered another problem with the code in the magazine. The #DEFINE statement at the top of the code is in the wrong case. It should be:

#define MAXSEQ 20

and NOT

#DEFINE MAXSEQ 20

I've now got the simon game up and running.

It seams as though some of the more complex hobby electronics have gotten a lot easier, as it now comes down to a bit of programming and basic interfacing. I look forward to playing with the Arduino a bit more.

If you are interested in finding out more then order issues LXF 100 and LXF 103 (and the future ones) from: The Linux Format Website.

Here are some useful links: