Tom Chrane pronounced "Crane" is an instructor in the Engineering Technology Division at Central Piedmont Community College. He teaches courses in Electronics Engineering Technology and Computer Engineering Technology. Tom has been teaching microcontroller and microprocessor technology for over twenty years. Prior to that he worked as an embedded engineer designing microprocessor based controls for the oil production industry. Among his designs are a microcontroller based control for oil wells. This product line was eventually purchased by Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Tom teaches (for credit) microcontroller curriculum courses based on the Microchip PIC midrange processors. Both Applied Micro Training and Central Piedmont Community Collete Engineering Technology Department are Microchip Academic Partners.
Tom became interested in microprocessors shortly after they first came out in 1973. Later that year he designed and built his first working computer based on the Intel 4004/ 4040 microprocessor family. This was long before any text books were available on the subject. He still has this first unit and it still works fine after all these years! Back in those days all you could rely on were data manuals from the manufacturer (which had a lot of errors) and phone calls to the engineer at Intel.
Tom can be reached by email at:
tchrane@carolina.rr.com
phone 704-983-0006