Programmable Microcontrollers?

Post Reply New Topic

Hey.
I want to buy a programmable chip for circuit boards.
Like the PIC Microcontroller but obtainable in the UK.
Reason I want one is because I want to make a cool terminal thing.
Where can I get something like this I can plug in via USB and compile the code onto the chip with a compiler.
My budget is 100 pounds.

I used to program with the PICKit II. It was very good. Today it seems the Arduino is the most popular for hobbyists. Lots of info and tutorials on the internet for the Arduino. If I get back into microcontroller programming I would like to go that route too.

I would probably go with an Arduino Uno starter kit, perhaps something like this: w w w.oomlout.co.uk/starter-kit-for-arduino-ardx-p-183.html?zenid=b2ed96b6e19afd4b0db16e1e9c2f2cb1

You're welcome. Those things look awesome =)

I know the technology is a bit behind, but I did a lot of programming with Z-world's system. I enjoyed this job very much. If I ever decided to get back into it, I would look strongly into Arduino boards.

I recently bought a TI Launchpad. You can buy them directly from TI for $4.30US shipped. They're an MSP430 with a development board, with in-circuit debugging and some other niceties. They're probably better for some things than an Arduino, but they're quite good if you really want control over what the processor is doing. You program in C. I feel that the IDE that comes with (based on Eclipse) is a bit more professional feeling than the Arduino IDE. The IDE doesn't work in Linux, you can program them in Linux though but you miss out on in-circuit debugging - so probably only worth it if you've got a Windows computer you can use.

Info and some links here:

http://newscenter.ti.com/Blogs/newsroom ... -mcus.aspx

The Arduino is basically an Atmel AVR chip running a custom bootloader. Any Arduino board can be programmed directly using gcc, either in Linux, Windows, or on a Mac. Alternatively, you can get an Atmel based device and go this route without having to remove the Arduino bootloader.

That being said, the Arduino is a nice way to get into microcontrollers. A lot of the low-level coding has been done, so you can work on developing your application rather than having to re-invent the wheel. Some years ago I did a lot of the low-level work on a line of AVR-based controllers. It's a great learning experience, so if learning is your goal by all means do it. But if you want to make an LCD display text, make a servo go, and light up some LEDs, the Arduino is a nice bit of kit.

All 8-bit controller platforms are pretty similar in terms of specs, power consumption, and available peripherals (ADCs, UARTs, timers, etc). I would go with AVRs because they have the cheapest dev tools.

The STK500 is a good starting point, and once you need more powerful debugging you can get a JTAG interface for $50 (the AVR dragon). I haven't checked recently, but as of a couple years ago, no other controller platform had anything even remotely close in price to the AVR dragon.

I like the Atmel AVR microcontrollers very much
They are quite cheap, have lots of peripheral features (UART, ADCs, timers, PWM channels, I2C and SPI interface, ...), there is a free development environment (AVR Studio; but that's only for Windows) and an open source C compiler (AVR-gcc / WinAVR).

You can buy an evaluation board (e.g. AVR dragon or STK500); but you can also build a programming adapter yourself and almost for free.

I do a lot with Atmel AVR controllers; they are really awesome!

And in my opinion, the best PC for µC experiments:
It should have at least one RS232 and LPT port (I don't like the USB-to-RS232 or USB-to-LPT adapters very much). If it's a tower PC and it doesn't have these ports: PCI cards which feature 2 RS232 and one LPT port are available for about 10 bucks.
The PC shouldn't be too valuable, because there is a bit of a risk that you damage something by misconnections on the RS232/LPT/USB ports. But since the development software hasn't high system requirements, you can even use a 10 year old PC for this: I can use AVR studio wihtout any problems on a 1.0GHz Pentium 3 with 288MB of RAM and Windows 2000; this PC is from 2001 .