Newbie needing help with designing a Microcontoller

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Victor43

Joined Aug 29, 2011
8
Hello everyone.

I am not sure where to begin so let me know start with the following. I would like to know if its possible to design a cheap integrated card that I can program to analyze what is happening on a computer motherboard bus ? I would like to be able to capture all data transmissions which are transmitted on a motherboard so that I can use it as a diagnostic reporter or troubleshooter. Please I really don't wish to purchase a PC Diagnostic Card because that is not my area of interest of troubleshooting boot up issues. I was thinking that it should be card that can be installed in a PCI slot. Where would someone buy the components from and how would I be able to program the controller ?

I would appreciate all suggestions but keep in mind your talking to someone who knows nothing on how IC works let alone programming a microcontroller.

I hope I have made myself clear and if not please let me know and I will gladly try to explain it again. Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Victor.
 

maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
Praondevou is right. This is way to complex for a newb to think about, may be dream about. Step 1 is buy a PIC development board or Arduino and a programmer and lots of books. Your looking at 6 months to a year to learn microcontroller basics, then you might I quote might have a shot at thinking about your project. That being said Sparkfun.com is a good place, Microchipdirect.com, Ebay.com, and finally Digikey.com. This is where your gonna find your equipment. Then search out free tutorials and books online. Then be prepared to think in bits and bytes for everything. Want to turn on a led, you would change 1 bit, in a byte from a 0 to a 1. When I started that was my hardest learning curve to understand everything is done with 1's and 0's.
 
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