Programma2003 Microcontroller Board

It's a single board computer based on the super standard Pic16f876 microcontroller plus a power supply section which provides a stabilised 5v source, an RS-232 interface circuit which allows the board to communicate with computers and a standardised connector. The standard connector gives access to the input and output pins of the microcontroller. It is designed in a way that every pin also has a power and ground pin next to it. By plugging-in pre wired sensors and actuators it is possible to build complex devices in a matter of seconds.There are different modes of use of growing complexity:

Slave Device the board can be programmed with a standard software which reads some pins as inputs and sends the value to the serial port as a sequence of numbers separated by commas. If the computer sends back a sequence of numbers separated by commas the values are presented on the output pins. This makes the device a simple and cheap I/O board for the PC to be used in conjuction with a software written in Proce55sing.
Autonomous the board is programmed locally using the Jal language which will process the input from sensors and react by using actuators plugged in the standard connector. It is still possible to use the serial port to comunicate with a PC.
Prototype the standard connector can be plugged into a BreadBoard and used to prototype more complex circuits.
Networked There is an optional RS-485 module that can be used to network multiple boards together using a simple protocol, this allows experimenting with small networks of intelligent objects.
Wireless Using a wireless transceiver the Programma2003 can participate in a small network of wireless object like in the Box http://projects.interaction-ivrea.it/box project which was the first application of the board.