Purchase microcontroller dev. kit

There are many kits because there are many different types of microcontrollers from a multitude of manufacturers. The intended application, your current expertise, and some other factors such as how you want to craft the additional circuitry that you may want to add to the DEV board will determine what you end up purchasing.

I happen to recommend the Dev Kits that you can get from SiLabs. These are low cost, come with super nice code debug support and include a CD with a OEM version of the Keil 8051 tool set that lets you make small test and experiment programs without having to also first buy an expensive tool set. You can see some applications ideas around using these kits at:

and

- mkaras

Whatever you buy, make sure the microcontroller has one addressing space (no 8051, no AVR, no PIC) if you want to keep your code portable. You wouldn't be the first developer who has found the platform that looked so promising in the past turns out to be a deadlock.

No 8051, no AVR, no PIC? What *would* you recommend, then? ;-)

I'm in a similar boat as the OP. I've found, though, that there seem to be a LOT of books on PIC development, and not all that many on the AVR. (Even my local Borders Bookstore had no fewer than 4 books on PIC projects, PIC robotics, etc.)

Michael

Hitachi/Renesas H8 / H8S, Texas Instruments MSP430, Analog Devices Blackfin DSP.

Oh crap, now you did IT !!!

The religous war about my CPU is better than your CPU is going to start.

Please snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com just purchase a working board and start playing with it. After a while ( days, weeks, months, depends on your time) you will get to know one cpu and all the others are "just the same" as far as development is concerned.

They all have quirks, they all require time to understand.

If there is a user group in your area, find it and you will also find help in getting what you want running.

There is NO best processor, this is too small or too large, but you will learn this for yourself.

Good Luck and let us know what you found.

donald

No not at all. Look at the big picture here. Its not the CPU that matters, its where you want to go in the future that matters! A choice for a CPU should be driven by the question: "What if I want to move to a different platform". With some platforms the answer to this question is: "throw away everything you wrote and start over". So a choice for a platform should be made with great care.

That's exactly why I listed a general purpose microcontroller series, a micropower series and a full blown 300+ MHz 32 bit DSP with MMU capable of running a genuine OS like Linux. However, generic C code written for one, can be moved to the other.

Yeap, as usual.

If you take this approach, you would never do anything. There is always something better coming up. May I ask how many actual designs have you done?

Why do you think the OP needs a 32 bits DSP? Well written C codes should not have much problem moving between 8051, PIC or AVR.

Aye. And what about those 4-bit PIC chips. Really cheap. Don't need a 32 bit DSP for running a toaster...

Michael

Gee that's stange, how on earth have I moved C code almost seamlessly from a PIC to an AVR to a Rabbit then?

You can't be serious suggesting that a beginner think about the "big picture" and choose some oddball processor based on some perceived future requirement, that is crazy. A beginner needs something that is common beginner platform so that they can get tons of support, sample code, books and other beginner level stuff etc That basically means PIC or AVR these days, that's where the action is. I'd suggest the OP start on the PICAXE, it is the easiest introduction possible. Work up from there.

Dave :)

Countless with a delivery date set to yesterday.

Funny to see how '32 bit DSP' works like a red flag on a bull on some people. Take a deep breath and read again. The range of controllers I suggested goes from less than 16 pins to over 256 pins.

Nothing wrong with those you suggested. But 8051, PIC and AVR are still in many microcontroller designs, which you are telling people to ignore.

Yeah; cost, availability, capability, power consumption, quality and availability of tools, vendor support and all the other considerations aren't even worth thinking about.

Other than strings and lookup tables stored in program space, virtually all my non-hardware-related AVR code is portable. It's just C. Changing those parts isn't hard and, importantly, doesn't significantly alter the logic. I can't see myself needing to throw much away if I change platforms.

Tim

Questions for ya (from a newbie):

Is the C compiler for the PICs free?

What about for Atmel's chips?

Michael

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: [MCUs]

There's a limited version of the PICC compiler available for free. It only supports some PICs and it's limited to 2K of program memory, which isn't a lot. There may be other options I don't know about.

You can use gcc, which is free and available for just about any platform. It has no artificial restrictions. gcc and a bunch of other tools are all packaged together for Windows and released as "WinAVR". Atmel also supply a AVRStudio - an IDE, assembler and simulator for Windows, for free. AVRStudio works with WinAVR, so you can use it for C as well as assembler.

Tim

Hmm... maybe PICs are a good place to start so that one can be pleasantly surprised when they find something better like an AVR? :-)

That brings me to a question I've always meant to ask, but always forgot to ask.

Can anyone recommend any good books for a beginner to learn Atmel's chips? (big cheesy grin)

Also... is AVR the current state of the art? What about all those ATxxxxxxx chips... are they obsolete, or just different...?

Thanks!

Michael

The 18series C compiler from Microchip is essentially free now. It only has some minor limitations about code optimisation which you won't have to worry about.

The HI-TECH PIC-Clite compiler is free but only supports a limited number of PICs

There is the GCC compiler, but really I would suggest a beginner stay away from it, you'll spend most of your time fighting the tool. No doubt many users will jump out in support of it though, but seriously it's not integrated and user friendly enough for a beginner.

Beginners need something that works out of the box. There is nothing worse than writing your LED flasher code and nothing happens, and then you don't know if it's your code, a chip specific register you haven't enabled, oscillator options you got wrong, your programming tool chain, a fault in the download cable or wiring etc etc

You could do a lot worse than starting with something like the PICAXE and work up from there.

Dave :)

There is a danger of irreparable brain damage...

STK500 is a good starting point. AVR has a simple and straightforward architecture. Easy to program both in assembler and C. Free WinAVR GCC port. Lots of stuff @