EAS Finger Board is a 68HC11 based mini controller board for your robotics and interface projects. Finger Board was created as a compact general purpose embedded controller to be used for robotics, data logging, smart instruments, and custom control applications. It can run Interactive C and emulates many of the hardware functions of “Handy Board” by MIT. Motor functions as well as push buttons were left out of the design to keep it small, simple and versatile. All functions of the “Handy Board” can be added via expansion board, circuits of older “Rug warrior” designs as well. The Finger Board uses very common parts and a low parts count to keep costs down. All mating contacts are spaced .1″ apart to allow the Finger Board to plug on top of standard prototyping boards. The Finger Board comes as two separate circuit boards, the CPU board and the RS232 Communications board. It also can be ordered as a single board if size is not an issue.
For those who are interested, here’s a schematic of our Finger Board in Acrobat PDF format.
Finger Board Manual in Acrobat PDF format. This is a large file, about 1.2megs.
A Windows Help file to facilitate connections to the Finger Board. This is a 32bit help file and will not run under Windows 3.1
Online assembly manual. This page may take awhile to load due to the many images.
Some interface circuits in Acrobat PDF format. For those who want to add the missing Handy Boards circuits to the Finger Board.
Images showing how to construct a expansion board.
Frequently Asked Questions FAQ list.
| The original Finger Board is no longer available. The Finger Board II is the current version that we now sell. This page is reference only for customers who have one. We still have some original Finger Board bare PCB’s available at a discount. Please contact us if you are interested. |
Finger Board: (click here for more images)
Bare PC board : (click here for image)
Specifications:
Motorola 68HC11 CPU.
256kbit (32Kbyte) Dallas battery-backed memory module, no need to use eproms or slower eeproms.
Compact size 2 X 2.75
Interactive C compatible LCD interface.
Network capable SPI interface. (1 Mbaud serial peripheral interface).
Optional real time clock
Expansion Ports, list of headers:
Port A of 68HC11, 8 multi function I/O pins (JP8).
Port E of 68HC11, 8 analog channels (JP7).
Memory mapped I/O, Finger Board can be easily expanded to have 32 digital inputs and 32 digital output lines (JP9).
IRQ and XIRQ lines brought out for external interrupts (JP11).
Standard 9 pin serial port (P1).
SPI high speed serial interface, an easy way to attach peripherals (JP4).
LCD display interface (JP2).
Sharp IR receiver input (JP10).
Speaker output (JP12).
Infrared transmitter output (JP13).
Power requirements:
6.3 to 18 Volts DC. Can easily run from a 9 Volt DC battery.
Current consumption: 24ma. DC without communications board < 10ma in WAIT mode, or STOP mode
30ma. DC with communications board.
Dimensions:
CPU board only 2.75 long 2.0 wide.
Communications board 1.45 long 2.0 wide.
CPU board with attached communications board 4.2 long 2.0 wide.
Software:
We do not provide software with the Finger Board but here are some links to freeware and shareware compilers and programs that can be downloaded and used to write programs for the Finger Board. Check out our related sites page for links to commercial compilers.
C compilers – Interactive C, Small C and ICC11. For writing BASIC programs, use SBasic by Karl Lunt. Karl also has written a version of FORTH for the HC11 called tiny4th. Two very good interactive debuggers are NoICE by John Hartman and PCbug by Motorola. A good bootloader is Hcload by Sylvain Bissonnette. The one we have found to be very reliable is DL68hc11 by Wilfried Markenstein. Motorola also has a freeware assembler, as11.
