The Piccolino rapid development board can be used to design microcontroller circuits quickly. The Piccolino has a fast 16f887 PIC microcontroller, voltage regulator, and communications module, and can be easily extended using its four headers.

This e-book contains 30 projects based on the Piccolino. We'll use its unique communications facilities and get the Piccolino to communicate with programs on a PC. On the PC, we use the free programming language Small Basic. You can use this to create Windows programs with buttons and graphs quickly. You will learn how to analyze components such as inductors, capacitors, and OPAMPs, and how to display the measurement results in a graphical format. This will help you to design your circuits easily.

We will then start to adapt to the Piccolino. We'll add components to it to make it more powerful, with extra features such as flow control and digital to analog conversion. The clear instructions will enable you to design and build your adaptations. This way you can make your custom designed Piccolino.

We'll end up making an extension: a PCB that that can be mounted on the Piccolino headers. As an example, we'll design and build an extension for an LCD. You can use the included board layout to make your PCB or have it made for you. At the same time, you will learn how to make your extensions. The only limitation is your imagination!

The clear descriptions along with circuit diagrams and photos, will make the building of these projects an enjoyable experience. Each project has a clear explanation of the reasons why it was designed in a particular way. This helps you learn a lot about the Piccolino, as well as Small Basic, and the components that are used in this e-book. You can adapt the projects to suit your requirements or combine several projects.