Digital Logic Education

xtricity

is there a replacement to the "Elements of Digital Logic" kit? I would like to get the Parallax Digital Trainer board. My goal is to really dig into gates and logic circuits. The software simulation doesn't give me enough fulfillment. Why was this kit discontinued? Is there any old stock of it?

allanlane5

I believe it was discontinued due to lack of demand. In this day and age of multi-thousand gate ASIC (application Specific Integrated Circuit) design, and embedded CPU's, spending a lot of time at the TTL gate level doesn't appeal to a lot of people. In addition, the BS2 and BOE gives you a platform to mount whatever IC's you would like (especially if you add a Radio Shack breadboard) and use the BS2 to run and measure TTL circuits.

xtricity

Hi, thanks for the response. I've downloaded the PDF book and software from
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=28201

I have the BS2, BOE, and associated SIC texts. I also have a range of TTL 74XX chips and some of Don Lancasters books. I would like to get a better understanding of how the basic gates operate together to form more complex circuits. I'm using a number of DIP switches, LEDs, and three breadboards. It's not as convenient as having a logic trainer board because the pins of the chips can get bent and the DIP switches sometimes wiggle on the board.

I've been looking at the Nurve Networks Micro Digital Logic Exploration Kit. The price of $40 is cheap, but it seems like I need to buy the XGS Micro too for $129.
http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=21
So, that kit would be $170 plus shipping and tax. I'm in CA. The price is okay I guess, but I don't know about the quality of the texts. I can see the Parallax text and it looks good. Anyone use the Nurve one?

I've also looked at the Vulcan Digital Logic Trainer.

http://www.jcminventures.com/vulcan_trainer_and_support.htm

This one seems good, with some nice software. I'm concerned that there might not be enough cookbook type of exercises in it.

Mike Green

The Nurve Networks kit is put out by Andre Lamothe who also designed the Hydra and wrote the manual for it (which is quite good). The author is different for this kit, but Andre is very particular about what goes out under his control.

Post Edited (Mike Green) : 2/27/2007 7:43:55 PM GMT

Mike Green

Backing up a moment ... What are you most comfortable with? The Nurve kit is going to be heavily focused on the XGS Micro which is essentially an SX processor set up for game construction. The Vulcan Trainer is very simple and you'll quickly move beyond its capabilities. How about getting a Parallax Professional Development Board which has the breadboard, 5V power supply, push buttons, LEDs, DIP switches, pulse generator, etc. You can take the BS2 off the BOE and move it to the Development Board and use it to control more complex projects with the PC DEBUG window for display. Later you can get a BS2p40 to replace the BS2 which will give you an additional 16 bits of I/O to use. You can get a parallel LCD display that will plug directly into the Development Board and the BS2p has statements to directly output to the LCD (look in the PBasic manual under LCDOUT).

Peter Verkaik

I don't know the parallax logic simulation software
but here is a nice·free software package with lots of
animated simulation examples, from very basic to very advanced.
The examples run right out the box.
http://www.softronix.com/logic.html

It·might be interesting to build some of the examples
using the PDB.

regards peter

xtricity

Thanks to everyone for the information this is good stuff, very thoughtful comments. Mike has a great point about the Vulcan board being too basic, especially if it doesn't have a thick set of exercises. My basic goal is hobby entertainment. About 25 years ago, I could program in asm. I haven't worked in technology development for the past 20 years. I recently got into this hobby again after a long hiatus because I noticed that my elementary-age son had friends that were building electronic circuits, primarily analog stuff. Since his school isn't teaching him any electronics, I wanted to provide some experiences that we could share together. It's pretty fun to help him design and build circuits. I'm also buying some kits that I can build and program on my own because it turns out that I'm remembering how fun this stuff is.

I've ordered the XGS Pico kit from Nurve as well as the SX key and associated documentation. The XGS Pico kit doesn't have the card slot for the Digital Logic Exploration kit.

I want to build circuits from as small a component part as possible. Getting below the higher layers of abstraction and circuit groupings is giving me a sense of nostalgia mixed with a pioneering spirit that I'm sure the early electronic hobbyists must have felt. I'd even be interested in building from discrete circuits if there were an easy to follow document like the Parallax stuff.

Anyway, thanks for the info. If I buy the Nurve Digital Exploration Logic Kit, I'll let you know how it goes and post a review here. It would be nice to see experiments for it like how Parallax offers a PDF download. The cost of the kit isn't so much, but then I have to order the XGS Micro too.

Peter, when I get back to my Windows machine, I'll check out the Softronix examples. It might be what I'm looking for.