which MCU to pick

Well for the ATMega at least gcc is available, which I have used quite succesfully on the AVR series, including the ATMega32. There are quite a lot of community support for the AVR using the gcc tools. As for the 68HC908, I cannot comment as I have not used this family before.

Regards Anton Erasmus

You *can* program the '08 in C, there are no major warts in the architecture that make it compiler *un*friendly, but the lack of general-purpose registers means that compilers tend to use pseudo-registers on the zero page and subroutines to manipulate them.

Cosmic do a pretty good '08 compiler, given the core's limitations.

The AVR is much more C-friendly, being essentially a "narrow" version of standard RISC processors.

pete

At no cost, you can try out the permanent Special version of Metrowerks CodeWarrior for the entire HC(S)08 series. In addition, you can evaluate the full version for 30 days. There are some evaluation boards available at low cost ($50 to $300, depending upon the chip - I think).

You can either download the entire software (over 700 MB installed) or you can request a free CD, or both. If you get the CD, also get the free CDs for the other Motorola chip series available, since the shipping costs would be the same if there are more than one. The URL for the HC08 is:

CodeWarrior is fairly simple to use, especially if you follow the tutorials or the example projects included with the installation.

Gary Schnabl

Anton,

For the '08, Bytecraft is the only place I know of to get a C compiler.

Dave Bardon, Avocet

Also Cosmic, Metrowerks.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Also Imagecraft.

Use the AVR then. There are good C compilers for the HC08, but some of the things you need to do to make C work on that platform aren't efficient ;)

pete