For the last several months I've been wading back into this myself, just for fun, having done alot during and shortly after college 20 years ago, but then drifting away. My suggestions:
1. Suppliers
Digikey absolutely rules. Largest variety of everything electronic. Very easily-navigated site. No minimum order ($5 handling charge if your order is under $25).
Jameco is a good second choice. Especially good for lots of different cheap power supplies.
With Radio Shack, this should be all you need for now.
2. Learning Resources
Someone already pointed you to the various cookbooks. TTL cookbooks are especially good places to start at your level.
A great online resource used to be ePanorama.net, but they're 404ing at the moment, so maybe they're gone for good and they'll be back.
Circuits Archive has lots of simple circuits you can peruse to see how stuff gets done at the lowest level, just like the cookbooks.
3. Advice
Stay away from FPGAs initially. I think you'll find the architecture and associated design process too big a piece to bite off at this point, and not worth the effort.
Focus on TTL and learning what functions are available in various packages (track down an old "TTL Databook" from TI; they don't print them anymore but they're much handier for learning and browsing than online equivalents, which assume youknow what you're looking for). See this for high-level descriptions and this for pdfs of actual datasheets.
When you're ready (which might be immediately) choose a microcontroller family to bone up on and stick with it. It's a huge waste of effort relearning architectures, instruction sets, and development tools for different families. For your purposes, either the PIC (from Microchip), 8051 (Intel et al.), or AVR (Atmel) will do fine (and they're all available from Digikey). I chose the AVR for the following reasons:
a) Wide (enough) range of parts, from 8-pin to 64-pin, 1K ROM to 128K ROM, various arrangments of on-chip peripherals (including A/D).
b) Cheap, from under $2/chip (single-piece) to under $30 for their fanciest.
c) ALL members of the AVR family contain on-chip FLASH ROM for program storage and can be programmed in-system directly via your PC serial port. This makes a HUGE difference (compared to external ROMs or on-chip EPROM) during prototyping.
Some people will suggest the BASIC Stamp from Parallax, which is a fine product which I've played with. My beef with it is it's expensive ($30 or so, I think) and all you really get for the money is a Basic intepreter. I think you'll find assembler for these chips so simple you don't need Basic. You can also get separate free Basic compilers for all of them.
Auterra is offering diagnostic s/w and an interface cable for Palm PDAs that's compatible with OBD II engine computers (required in the US since '96 model year, I believe). It certainly doesn't address all your concerns, but shifts some of the power back towards the consumer interested in maintaining his vehicle himself.
I lived in Manhattan several years ago and after the first time my car was broken into I got a nice leather daypack which I kept in the car. Whenever I parked it I'd put anything worth stealing (including the removable stereo) into the pack, take it with me, and leave the doors unlocked. Several times I returned to find one of the doors open, papers scattered about, but nothing stolen. And no broken windows.
Radio Shack just introduced a handheld infrared thermometer for $49.99 (part #23-144). Your project would be time consuming with it, but you did emphasize cheap.
Piece of Space Shuttle Thermal Tile ($16.95)
on
Geek Gift Ideas 2001
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· Score: 1
Tiny, little flake, actually. These are being sold by a NASA worker who took home a bunch of discarded tiles early in the shuttle program (before it became illegal to do so, as it is now) to insulate his fireplace. Get yours at The Space Store.
For the geek who has everything, a bottle of... nothing. Zero volume, to be precise. Get yours at Acme Klein Bottle. Geek klein trivia: this company is owned and run by author Clifford Stoll.
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1. Suppliers
Digikey absolutely rules. Largest variety of everything electronic. Very easily-navigated site. No minimum order ($5 handling charge if your order is under $25).
Jameco is a good second choice. Especially good for lots of different cheap power supplies.
With Radio Shack, this should be all you need for now.
2. Learning Resources
Someone already pointed you to the various cookbooks. TTL cookbooks are especially good places to start at your level.
A great online resource used to be ePanorama.net, but they're 404ing at the moment, so maybe they're gone for good and they'll be back.
Circuits Archive has lots of simple circuits you can peruse to see how stuff gets done at the lowest level, just like the cookbooks.
3. Advice
Stay away from FPGAs initially. I think you'll find the architecture and associated design process too big a piece to bite off at this point, and not worth the effort.
Focus on TTL and learning what functions are available in various packages (track down an old "TTL Databook" from TI; they don't print them anymore but they're much handier for learning and browsing than online equivalents, which assume youknow what you're looking for). See this for high-level descriptions and this for pdfs of actual datasheets.
When you're ready (which might be immediately) choose a microcontroller family to bone up on and stick with it. It's a huge waste of effort relearning architectures, instruction sets, and development tools for different families. For your purposes, either the PIC (from Microchip), 8051 (Intel et al.), or AVR (Atmel) will do fine (and they're all available from Digikey). I chose the AVR for the following reasons:
a) Wide (enough) range of parts, from 8-pin to 64-pin, 1K ROM to 128K ROM, various arrangments of on-chip peripherals (including A/D).
b) Cheap, from under $2/chip (single-piece) to under $30 for their fanciest.
c) ALL members of the AVR family contain on-chip FLASH ROM for program storage and can be programmed in-system directly via your PC serial port. This makes a HUGE difference (compared to external ROMs or on-chip EPROM) during prototyping.
Some people will suggest the BASIC Stamp from Parallax, which is a fine product which I've played with. My beef with it is it's expensive ($30 or so, I think) and all you really get for the money is a Basic intepreter. I think you'll find assembler for these chips so simple you don't need Basic. You can also get separate free Basic compilers for all of them.
Good luck.
Auterra is offering diagnostic s/w and an interface cable for Palm PDAs that's compatible with OBD II engine computers (required in the US since '96 model year, I believe). It certainly doesn't address all your concerns, but shifts some of the power back towards the consumer interested in maintaining his vehicle himself.
I lived in Manhattan several years ago and after the first time my car was broken into I got a nice leather daypack which I kept in the car. Whenever I parked it I'd put anything worth stealing (including the removable stereo) into the pack, take it with me, and leave the doors unlocked. Several times I returned to find one of the doors open, papers scattered about, but nothing stolen. And no broken windows.
Radio Shack just introduced a handheld infrared thermometer for $49.99 (part #23-144). Your project would be time consuming with it, but you did emphasize cheap.
Tiny, little flake, actually. These are being sold by a NASA worker who took home a bunch of discarded tiles early in the shuttle program (before it became illegal to do so, as it is now) to insulate his fireplace. Get yours at The Space Store.
As well as various other Cray-X bits and pieces. Get 'me while their hot (well, cooled in Fluorinert, anyway) at Memorybillia.
For the geek who has everything, a bottle of ... nothing. Zero volume, to be precise. Get yours at Acme Klein Bottle. Geek klein trivia: this company is owned and run by author Clifford Stoll.