Physics 234:  Digital Electronics

Fall 2008

Jed Brody (N308, 7-5580, jbrody@emory.edu)

 

 

 

 

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

—Mr. Spock 

 

 

This course emphasizes hands-on experimentation with digital circuits.  The objective is to become proficient in both the theory and practice of digital electronics.

 

The first part of the course introduces the basic building blocks of digital circuits:  logic gates, flip-flops, and counters.  The second part of the course introduces the microprocessor, arguably the most important device in the modern world.  (Without the microprocessor, there would be no computers and therefore no internet, no modern medical instruments, no modern telecommunications, etc.)  We will learn how to write programs in machine language (example:  86 21 8B 17 3E) and to interface the microprocessor with input and output devices.

 

            Grades will be determined as follows:

 

            Test (9/18):  Combinational Logic                                                         20%

                        Practice Test

 

            Digital-logic project (due 10/16):

                        Lab manual                                                                               10%

                        Lab report                                                                                10%

 

            Test (11/25):  Microprocessor Programming                                         30%

 

            Microprocessor project (due 12/17):                                                    30%

 

 


Date                 Topic                                       Activity

 

8/28                 Diodes                                     Digital experiment 3

9/2                   Transistors                                Digital experiments 1, 4

9/4                   Inverters                                   Digital experiment 2

9/9                   Boolean algebra                        Digital experiment 5

9/11                 Minimum configurations            Digital experiment 7

9/16                 Wired-AND                             Digital experiment 8

9/18                                                                 Test:  Combinational Logic

9/23                 SR flip-flops                             Digital experiment 9

9/25                 D and JK flip-flops                   Digital experiments 10, 11

9/30                 Counters                                  Digital experiment 12

10/2                 Counter applications                 Digital experiments 13, 14

10/7                 Decoders and displays              Digital experiments 18, 19

10/9                 Memory                                   Digital experiment 23

10/16               Programming                            Programming experiment 3

10/21               Branching                                 Programming experiment 5

10/23               Condition codes                       Programming experiment 6

10/28               Addressing modes                    Programming experiment 7

10/30               Subroutines                              Programming experiment 10

11/4                 Memory interfacing                   Interfacing experiment 1

11/6                 Interrupts                                  Interfacing experiment 2

11/11               Address decoding                     Interfacing experiment 3

11/13               Data output                              Interfacing experiment 4

11/18               Data input                                 Interfacing experiment 5

11/20               PIA                                          Interfacing experiment 6

11/25                                                               Test:  Microprocessor Programming

12/2                 Audio output                            Interfacing experiment 7

12/4                 Parallel-to-serial conversion      Interfacing experiment 8

12/9                 ADC and DAC                        Interfacing experiment 9                                   

 

All experiments are from Heathkit manuals, which should be available in the bookstore.  The digital experiments are from the Digital Techniques Workbook, the programming experiments are from the Microprocessors Textbook, and the interfacing experiments are from the Microprocessors Workbook.

 

Archives:  Modern Physics (Fall 2007)