While the advent of devices like the AVR and PIC microcontrollers have enabled the hobbyist to implement their vision into a real world working piece of hardware, it has also become a substitute for a solid knowledge of digital circuits and design by some.

The digital circuit hobby designer has become a black box, embedded code designer, and may lack the rudimentary knowledge of digital hardware design. Don’t get me wrong; there are many PIC and AVR users that do have a good digital...

Mikebits