Microchip Technology, makers of the PIC microcontroller, have released a demo board for the 8-bit PIC18F67J60 that is pre-programmed to function as an internet radio receiver.
Anyone familiar with the blog knows that I have a special love for internet streaming radio, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this demo board immediate caught my eye.
The demo board’s features include ethernet, a dedicated MP3 decoder IC, pushbutton user interface, and a cool OLED matrix display. The PIC18F67J60 includes an ethernet PHY on-chip, which makes for a very simple way to add network connectivity to the microcontroller. Sadly, unlike my usual hacking platform, there isn’t any wireless on-board, but given the extremely small size and downloadable source code, I am really tempted to get one of these to play with.
Here’s a short video about the board by MicrochipTechnology on YouTube:
Sure, the code’s available and is distributed as sample code with their TCP/IP stack. There’s an AppNote that describes the project on their website and includes schematics.
Theoretically you could turn the board and use a ZeroG wireless module in place of the on-chip PHY and it’d be wireless. The stack supports the ZeroG as of a month or two ago. Since it’s “just” a demo board, it is exactly what it is, except for the fact that you can, of course, re-flash the code with whatever you want. There aren’t too many degrees of freedom with this board otherwise. It’s not a full-fledged development board.
It’s also using an 8-bit processor, so it doesn’t have the headroom that the Jeff-O-Matic has though. Still impressive though. Mahogany extra.
I wonder if they have the firmware available for download? Seems like you could homebrew your own for much less with WiFi capability.