“Recently , I got hold of this EEPROM IC while browsing online , I searched the web and I found out that the IC, having part number ST24C04 supported I2C communication which gave me excitement thinking that I could make this work using an Arduino !
For those who are unaware, an EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. It is non-volatile and can store information even after being powered off. Essentially it behaves like a tiny hard disk which opens the gate to many Arduino projects that requires data storage like logging configuration data, storing weather data , or even storing passwords ! Just imagine if you could use your own encryption techniques to store passwords of all your social media accounts in an EEPROM that does not lose the data or is prone to getting hacked. Guess what , it is definitely possible with this IC.
But firstly we have got to understand how the ST24C04 works and how to store data in it using the Arduino IDE. The ST24C04 is a 4KBit or 512 byte capable EEPROM which consists of various write modes like Byte Write, Page Write, MultiByte Write, Write Protection etc. These bytes are arranged in two blocks of 256 bytes.Well, you might say 512 byte is too small for anything. I would contradict you by saying this is not meant for storing music or videos but small bits of information like passwords etc. In this article , I will show you how to read or write from a single byte at a time .”