08. Networking


Networking is a about defining and running protocols. So to have a deeper understanding, read these protocols that we use everyday in our computer networks:

+ RFC 791 Internet Protcol (IP)
+ RFC 793 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
+ RFC 768 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

+ RS-232 (Serial Port) is a protocol for information exchange and mechanical connectors, borned in the early 1960s. It specifies signal voltages, signal timing, and signal function. Any device connected to serial port needs the serial transmission converted back to parallel so that it can be used. UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) is an integrated circuit which works with serial ports converting incoming data from a serial port into parallel form and parallel data to serial form when sending out data through a serial port. USART (Universal Synchronous-Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) can work with async signals as well. We do bit shifting (putchar, getchar functions in the assembly) for using UART.


The board at the back sending 8 byte data to the one on the front. The received data is transmitted to computer via serial connection by the Atmel Mega32 microcontroller.


+ Internet 0 is a new network of physical objects initiated by Neil Gershenfeld, Raffi Krikorian, and Danny Cohen. It has the vision of giving the everyday objects the ability to connect to a data network. We are going to decompose and then implement the Internet 0 in the class for understanding the networking and using it in our final projects. It uses IP, each device is responsible for keeping track of its own identity, uses bits that are bigger then the network, these bits have a physical size such as electrical, radio, or light pulses, and the use of big bits allows the data that make up a packet to be represented in the same way no matter what physical medium conveys them.*

+ Write protocols for the final project. How will an array of motors talk to each other? How will they interpret the signals? What is the scenario of the circuit?

+ Also check out the visionary book "PROTOCOL - How control exists after decentralization" by Alex Galloway to see how protocols have an essential role/control in our life.

* From the article published in Scientific American, Oct 2004