My experience was exactly the opposite on my last go around with them. I h ad programmer issues (PICKIT3 and ICD2 both, had to buy an ICD3), compiler code generation bugs (hitech), support cases that went unanswered, local Mi crochip person who wouldn't call me back, parts that seemed to lose their p rogramming when programmed at low (but legal) voltage, docs that were wrong , conflicting, misleading and incomplete.
I know that every project is going to have a few of these things, but all o f them together was too much. There are too many good alternatives to both er with Microchip.
It is amazing how cheaply they sell these things. I think it shows the power of eval boards. They wouldn't sell them this inexpensively unless they had good reason to believe that it is profitable in other ways.
I think MPE Forth supports the ST devices. I wonder if they have board support for this product. It seems like something that would be a good introductory free version. $11 to get started with a state of the art processor and an onboard debugger interface!
I got some promotional email from Freescale a week or so ago, they were selling some power architecture evaluation board at $250 (quite an exception, their large ones are at $3 and $4k). Had what I perceive as the "wrong" core (not having the "normal" FPU) and then I have never used an evaluation board anyway - might be OK in your context though, especially as I know the importance you put on diversity.
But I lost the link, spent half an hour trying to locate it and could not... I'll give it another try later today.
It's a bit on the high end (even at that price) and it would certainly require a great deal of associated writing and education to take fuller advantage. I've no doubt the price is decent for all that is included, though. I'll look a little further into it and what those connectors on both sides are supposed to do, too.
One major thing to consider here is if the toolchain is built from the mainline gcc/binutils sources or if the vendor forked the GNU toolchain and added the MCU support only into the forked version.
If it's the latter, then any developments in the GNU mainline code will not be reflected in the vendor's fork unless the vendor performs a code integration exercise. You are also at risk of the vendor's version of the toolchain stagnating at a specific (and increasingly obsolete) version.
Depends. Sometimes it's fun to implement a library yourself as a purely intellectual exercise and sometimes you want to do it anyway because you want a common API across multiple MCUs.
It may be worth you looking at RTEMS and seeing if it does what you want.
Simon.
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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Close, but not quite. They won't be reflected until _someone_ does the integration. It doesn't have to be the vendor. That's the primary difference between the GPL and other licences.
BTW, you are not the only one who thinks of things 5 minutes after posting. :-)
Is the intention to only use pre-built kits or do you want to build your own circuits ?
The answers are potentially very different depending on your goals.
Why do your friends "detest" the Arduino ?
As I mentioned over in the CP/M thread I'm a hobbyist (at least at embedded work) and I have never considered purchasing the Arduino even though my 8-bit work is mostly AVR.
In my case, I don't have any negative feelings towards the Arduino, it's just that I don't see the point in buying a board when the components are available in PDIP and hence I can just easily build a board to my exact specifications (or even breadboard it) as required.
One of the valid reasons for buying a Arduino board could be because of all the integrated sensors you get on a typical board, but for the projects I do that has not yet really been a issue for me.
This is one of the reasons I like using standard components instead of whatever gets bundled on a specific board. With standard components, you can build a nice modular software library to drive those components; you can then use those components in various environments of your own choosing.
Simon.
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Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
The GPL gives people the right to take the vendor's fork and work with it. But it is not going to get integrated back into the FSF mainline even though it is under the GPL - the FSF require a copyright assignment. So the copyright owner of the changes (usually the author, but perhaps their employer, or another party) must give the copyrights to FSF before they will accept the changes into the mainline.
So since the fork is under the GPL, you can (for example) take the fork and keep it up-to-date with later gcc mainline changes. Or you can pay someone else to do the work.
The FSF /could/ integrate it into their mainline code. But they won't do so without copyright assignment.
Couldn't resist but make the 100th post on this thread ;-)
I'll suggest the LPCXpresso boards for Cortex-M0 and M3:
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I've had great success using these for prototyping and the tools are really good compared to many alternatives. Eclipse based development environment, debugger works well, fast, CodeRed package of GCC tool chain.
There's a wide selection - Digikey currently has ~10 variants in stock for ~ $30. Very limited IO compared to other debug boards (one LED, lots of available signals, no peripherals).
We were talking about this over lunch at the last STM32 DISCOVERY seminar. If you want to implement some proof-of-concept in 20 minutes or so, a well- stocked lab with an Arduino or two will let you do this. Past that level, you start to find that the Arduino and the commercial shields are over- packaged, and tend to take away some of your design choices. This is sort of unavoidable with prepackaged solutions; Discovery boards do this too. The natural market for Arduini is people who feel it's re-inventing the wheel to solder down yet another microcontroller chip, and want to just grab the parts and the jumper wires and make their next machine.
The details here will depend on the country and the laws in that country, as well as any arrangements you might have with your employer. In some countries, for example, if you are employed as a full-time programmer, then any program code you write in your free time is also automatically owned by your employer. In other countries, anything you do in your free time is owned by you.
Of course, the clearest resolution is to do as you suggest - have forms signed by the author and the employer. But the FSF only /requires/ an employer declaration if the employer has rights to the code.
Copyright law is complicated - the FSF has this copyright assignment policy so that all the questions are asked /before/ the code is submitted, and there are no questions afterwards.
Other projects - such as Linux - do not have any sorts of copyright assignments. All they require is that they are sure the code submitted is legally licensed under the GPL2, and they see the multiple copyright ownership as an advantage.
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