FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Austin TX - 5 May 2008 - Oak Micros today announced four new microcontrollers based on the ZX microcontroller platform. The ZX-24pe is based on the Atmel AVR ATmega644p and includes a preprogrammed ZBasic Virtual Machine from Elba Corporation. The ZX-24ne, ZX-128ne, and ZX-1281ne are the ZBasic native mode devices that include a boot loader and ZX library from Elba Corporation. The ZX-24ne is the native mode equivalent of the new ZX-24pe and the ZX-128ne/ZX1281ne are the native mode equivalents of the existing Oak Micros ZX-128e and ZX-1281e devices. At this time Oak Micros is also announcing the end of life of the ZX-24e and ZX-24ae devices that based on older Atmel AVR microcontrollers. All of these devices are suitable for the hobbyist and professional alike and provide a powerful, easy to use platform for scientific and industrial control applications.

The four new devices announced today are similar to the existing, successful Oak Micros devices and have a prototyping and breadboard friendly 40-pin dual in line format that features 32 I/O pins, true voltage level RS232 transceiver, slide switch to choose between RS232 and logic voltage levels for serial channel one, LED monitoring on two I/O pins, and a 5 Volt regulator and power monitor LED. By utilizing the base features of the AVR microcontrollers, these new devices enhanced features such as a second hardware serial port. The ZX-24pe uses an external 32K or optional 64K byte EEPROM for ZBasic virtual machine programs. The three native mode devices; ZX-24ne, ZX-128ne, and ZX-1281ne use the ZBasic compiler to convert the user program to C code which is then compiled into AVR native machine code and downloaded into the device flash (64K or 128K). The programs for native mode devices can execute 2 to 10 times faster than the equivalent program using the ZBasic Virtual Machine.

The devices are programmed using the ZBasic programming language which is a subset of Microsoft’s Visual Basic (VB6) language with extensions suitable for microcontroller programming. The compiler can detect common programming defects such as use of a variable before its initialization and other likely errors. The ZBasic compiler incorporates advanced optimization techniques that help programmers pack more functionality into the available code and data spaces by, for example, eliminating unused or superfluous variables and unreachable code. The single unit pricing of the ZX-24pe and ZX-24ne is $59.95, the ZX-128ne is $69.95, and the ZX﷓1281ne is $79.95. Volume pricing is available.

Programs for the devices may be edited and compiled using a state-of-the-art Integrated Development Environment. The ZBasic IDE, based on an open-source programmer’s editor, provides productivity enhancing features such as word completion call tips, auto-indenting, syntax highlighting and undo/redo. The IDE can also be used to perform field updates of the ZX microcontroller’s internal firmware, making it simple for customers to upgrade to new releases as they become available.

More information about Oak Micros' products and a free download of the compiler, IDE and documentation are available at http://oakmicros.com. The ZBasic website, owned by Elba Corporation, is http://www.zbasic.net.

ZBasic is a trademark of Elba Corporation. The ZX-24e, ZX-24ae, ZX-24pe, ZX-24ne, ZX-128e, ZX-128ne, ZX-1281e, and ZX-1281ne product names have been licensed from Elba Corporation.