In microcontrollers, certain information is stored in the form of packed BCD. A packed BCD contains two decimal digits in a byte. Eg: 34, 76 etc. An unpacked BCD contains one decimal digit in a byte. Eg: 05, 07 etc. To display these information, we have to convert it into ASCII. ASCII codes of the digits 0 to 9 are 30 to 39 respectively. It means that to display the digit 7, we have to first convert it into its ASCII code 37 (ie. 30 is added). Similarly to get the numerical value of ASCII code, we have to subtract 30 from it.
Packed BCD to ASCII conversion:
To convert packed BCD to ASCII, follow the steps: 1. Convert it into unpacked BCD 2. Add 30 to each digit. Example: Packed BCD 0x29 (00101001) Unpacked BCD 0x02 and 0x09 (00000010 and 00001001) Adding 0x30 0x32 and 0x39 (00110010 and 00111001)
ASCII to packed BCD conversion:
To convert ASCII to packed BCD, follow the steps: 1. Convert it to unpacked BCD 2. Combine the digits Example: Let the digits are ‘4’ and ‘7’ which are represented as 0x34 and 0x37. We have to combine it to a single byte as 47. Converting 0x34 to unpacked BCD gives 0x04 Converting 0x37 to unpacked BCD gives 0x07 Combining it to packed BCD gives 0x47
Programming Example: Binary (Hex) to Decimal conversion: Hexadecimal format is a convenient method to represent binary data. The binary data 00–FFH converted to decimal will give us 000 to 255. One method of converting it to decimal is dividing it by 10 and keeping the remainder. Example: Covert 0xFD to decimal. Its decimal value is 253. DATA SERIALIZATION Sometimes we need to send a byte of data one bit at a time through a single pin of a microcontroller. There are two ways to send data serially: 1. Using serial port 2. Data serialization. Using serial port method, the programmer has very limited control over the sequence of data transfer. In data serialization, the data bits can be send under the program control. So the programmer can determine the timing and bit sequence of the data.
Programming Examples:
If we want to send the MSB first, then the following changes can be made in the for loop: MEMORY ALLOCATION We can store predefined fixed data in any of the following three spaces in AVR microcontroller: • SRAM • EEPROM • Flash (code ROM) The size of these spaces depends on the microcontroller. To allocate space for data in EEPROM and Flash, different C compilers use different directives or built-in functions. Following is one of the method to allocate space in EEPROM and Flash.
