Need some help with small (sub 1000(?) gate) Gate Arrays.

Thread Starter

rasputin666

Joined Aug 22, 2007
8
I work in maintenance for a rural basketball stadium. We are in the process of refurbishing an old show court and are looking to replace an obsolete thirty year old electronic scoreboard.

I have some rather rusty hobbyist skills and I figure I can save a fair bit of cash for diversion to other pressing projects if we can do it ourselves.

For maximum flexibility and expandability I would like to implement a one chip, simple (cheap) as possible serial reciever (RS232 protocol) that receives a 2 byte packet of the form:

1XXXXXXX 0XXXXXXX

(-ve/+ve logic (or mixed) whatever's easiest, encoding in transmitter can compensate if necessary.)

The first byte is an address, the second data to directly drive a buffered seven segment display.

Once upon a time I was a bit of a hobbyist, and can figure out what I want in discrete bits. (But prices and soldering that many joints (on top of building the displays) don't fill me with joy).

Essentially, first I would like to know, is there a cheap (roughly $10) gate array (of whatever variety) which can be configured to do what I want? Or some other way to achieve the same result in a similar price range? And using a minimum of external components.

Second. If anyone would be so charitable, could they assist me with designing such a device?

Google gives me plenty of choices but "digital stupidity" doesn't appear to be an option unless I'm willing to resort to my old TTL & CMOS Data Books and take a complexity hit that defeats the purpose of the exercise.


The block diagram below is approximately what I think I want. Sorry for my "shorthand" but I haven't done any design for years and I'm making up what I don't remember. Hopefully my meaning comes across.



Thanks in advance for any help anyone might be able to give me.
 

Thread Starter

rasputin666

Joined Aug 22, 2007
8
I've been out of the loop too long.

I figured cutting edge 20 years ago is exactly what I wanted. I was almost right. Just not the architecture I expected.

The AT89C2051 at $AU3.50 in quantity does the job and quite a bit more.

Looks like artificial stupidity just ain't what it's cracked up to be. LOL.
 
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