1 cubic inch? Nnngh. <Gets his ruler out and has a look at just how
_small_ 1 inch seems :>
A PIC will do what you want easily, though at that size I would be
considering one of the SOIC 12Cxx (8 pin) device which have a built in
oscillator, and using the PIC directly to decode the IR transmissions
(thereby missing out the IR decoder chip). I suppose then you would have
difficulty driving two stepper motors directly. Is it really essential
to use stepper motors? A bigger (in more ways than one) problem is
getting small enough batteries and motors which can still do useful work
and do not cost a fortune.
If you do follow my advice and ditch the IR decoder chip, you will need
to look into what is necessary to distinguish between an actual
transmission and background noise, and also preferrably have some form
of addressing (So you can talk to more than one 'bot at once), and error
correction (IR is an extremely noise prone form of transmission).
Good look with the project, it sounds extremely interesting.

PATEL D wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> This is the first message I've put out on this, so here goes.
>
> I am a student at Leeds University, England and I am undertaking a
> project to build a 1 cubic inch microrobot. I have decided to use a
> PIC as the intelligence of the microrobot (probably the 16C71 or
> 16C84). The PIC chip receives 4-bits of data (from a IR decoder chip)
>  - telling the robot what to do (eg go forward, or turn left, etc). The PIC
 chip
>  then
> interprets these bits as a code and performs the appropriate task.
> The PIC controls the two stepper motors of the robot using the 8-bits
> of PORTB.
>
> I am completely new to PIC chips and have very little idea of what to
> do. So, does anyone have any advice?
>
> One of the 4 code bits from the decoder  is a valid transmission
>  bit which goes high for 4 clock cycles. Is it possible to use this
> as interrupt?

--
------------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation.
--------------------
: Alex Holden- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, and Radio amateur (M1
CJD). :
-------------- http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1532/
---------------