Looking for Microcontroller Recommendations

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:06:28 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b51e214.584438953@news.planet.nl>:

Here is a nice example of a project that uses 2 PICs for a start,
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/swr_pic/index.html
And guess what, both are listening on the same RS232 line,
and one does the reply work and carries the help text.

So you'll have to program 2 devices,

Yes, but the reason was actually not code space related but I/O pins.


keep 2 versions of software in
sync,

Now if that was the biggest problem, I have almost 1000 software versions out there,
this morning an other email about one with suggested code improvements.
Thats is how open source works, pfff 2 versions.... don't overwork yourself


place 2 devices,

So, 18 extra pins, I wonder how many I/O pins that ARM solution of yours has.

As many as you need. ARM devices go from 32pin packages to 100+ pin
packages. Placing one package is cheaper than placing two. Programming
one device is cheaper than two.

use more boardspace

Oh yes, that really is a worry if you have 1 cubic decimeter available...NOT.


and have no way to move to
a different platform

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.
Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),
ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.
No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.
They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

 

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.

At what price? There are two ways a manufacturor forces you to new
products: obsolete or triple the price. Renesas also carries a lot of
old stuff. If you don't want to re-design you pay for it. It costs
money to keep old

Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),

How about Motorola?

ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.

Xilinx's Virtex series are expensive as always. If you want
production, you need Spartan.

No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.

A cpu which sells 2.45 billion units in a year is definitely
mainstream.

"ARM's 2006 annual report and accounts state that royalties totalling
88.7 million GBP (164.1 million USD) were the result of licensees
shipping 2.45 billion units.[42] This is equivalent to 0.036 GBP
(0.067 USD) per unit shipped. However, this is averaged across all
cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture)

They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Now you're trolling.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:14:05 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54aeaa.767875078@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.

At what price?

http://www.microchip.com/ParamChartSearch/chart.aspx?branchID=1002&mid=10&lang=en&pageId=74

There are two ways a manufacturor forces you to new
products: obsolete or triple the price. Renesas also carries a lot of
old stuff. If you don't want to re-design you pay for it. It costs
money to keep old

Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),

How about Motorola?

ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.

Xilinx's Virtex series are expensive as always. If you want
production, you need Spartan.

No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.

A cpu which sells 2.45 billion units in a year is definitely
mainstream.

"ARM's 2006 annual report and accounts state that royalties totalling
88.7 million GBP (164.1 million USD) were the result of licensees
shipping 2.45 billion units.[42] This is equivalent to 0.036 GBP
(0.067 USD) per unit shipped. However, this is averaged across all
cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture)

They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Now you're trolling.

No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?
http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!
Where everything fits, as much memory as you want to put in.
interfaces foe everything, readily available power supplies.
Especially that par port is cool.

WTF bother with some obscure architecture? I have all the tools for this one
inclusive a Linux OS.


You are trolling with that sig every time, it is irritating.

Anyways, I do not argue with religious beliefs, you are an ARM believer.

 

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:14:05 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54aeaa.767875078@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture)

They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Now you're trolling.

No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?
http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires. Ofcourse
I want it to have memory, storage, connection to an LVDS LCD panel,
some real integrated parallel I/O and a PSU that runs from some DC
voltage source (lets say 5V or 12V) ofcourse. I know about these
boards; we use them as little as possible. If you want a complete
system you'll get close to 200 euro. Add some add-on boards for I/O
and a decent audio interface and you get close to 300 euro.
And there are many reliability issues. I know from experience that it
takes a lot of work to turn such a board into a reliable solution. And
these is always a fan running that needs to be replaced approx. every
3 years.

A beagleboard fits the bill much better and costs half your solution.
http://beagleboard.org/

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[krw]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:51:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje
<pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.
Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),
ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.
No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.

If that's what gets you excited you must be madly in love with the
8051! It makes the PIC look like the new kid.

ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.
They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Don't be an asshole. I know it's hard...

 

[Nobody]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:26:29 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

I made 30, but still counting.
How many do you have in the room you are in?

3 x86 PC's (2 functional, one dead), a MIPS-based router, and a variety of
PICs (although, apart from the one in the PICkit2, they aren't part of
anything, they're just "parts"). There's bound to be a CPU in the monitor,
but no idea what sort.

I'm not much of a "gadget" person (I don't even have a mobile phone).

There are probably more CPUs in the kitchen than here

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:54:35 +0000) it happened Nobody
<nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in <pan.2010.01.19.08.53.33.125000@nowhere.com>:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:26:29 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

I made 30, but still counting.
How many do you have in the room you are in?

3 x86 PC's (2 functional, one dead), a MIPS-based router, and a variety of
PICs (although, apart from the one in the PICkit2, they aren't part of
anything, they're just "parts"). There's bound to be a CPU in the monitor,
but no idea what sort.

I'm not much of a "gadget" person (I don't even have a mobile phone).

Mobile phones are cool, mine even can do internet.
Also have a ssh client, opera browser, and irc client on it

There are probably more CPUs in the kitchen than here

Yes, the CPUs rule, once they become AI we are lost.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:52:10 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54c708.774112562@news.planet.nl>:

No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?

http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires.

If you need an embedded solution, and have space, there is time to market,
design cost, and cost of software tools.
This is 90 % of all that of the shelf for 70 Euro.

If you design from scratch (with any processor), and say need
USB
PCI
Par port
serial
SATA
then you are in for a lot more, a LOT more.
And then you still need to design that I/O it was about in the first place.
If you ever designed a PCI card, and know the interface,
then all you have to concentrate on is that, for the rest there are many mobos,
so good second source.
For the par port, I run strings of i2c chips from it, perfect for multitasking
as i2c is not delay sensitive.
The first time I did it that way was in the eighties when i2c was born,
and I still do it today.
Then there is the serial ports etc..
How much memory you want or need is up to you, you just plug it in.
As far as reliability is concerned, that only gets better the more is integrated in the CPU.
Less chance for the mobo designer to f*ck up.
And most mobos I have here, some very old ISA, just run fine today.
The change of a defective memory chip is much bigger, and that would hit
you too if you did your own.

Anyways, no arguing, not giving away more secrets, I would have to charge you consultancy cost,
but you can alway email geld_speelt_geen_rol at panteltje dot com.

Ofcourse
I want it to have memory, storage, connection to an LVDS LCD panel,
some real integrated parallel I/O and a PSU that runs from some DC
voltage source (lets say 5V or 12V) ofcourse. I know about these
boards; we use them as little as possible. If you want a complete
system you'll get close to 200 euro. Add some add-on boards for I/O
and a decent audio interface and you get close to 300 euro.

I am not sure for how much you would sell a complete ARM system with same capabilities.
Buy a netbook?

And there are many reliability issues. I know from experience that it
takes a lot of work to turn such a board into a reliable solution. And
these is always a fan running that needs to be replaced approx. every
3 years.

Not so, these boards now also exists with passive cooling!
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Atom-Mainboards-mit-HDMI-Ports-und-PCI-Express-Slots-898611.html

A beagleboard fits the bill much better and costs half your solution.
http://beagleboard.org/

Kids stuff, does not even have Ethernet, does not accept my PCI cards either,
no par port, DOA. No win 7, no LTSpice in Wine.

 

[Hal Murray]

In article <hj2cmc$uah$1@news.albasani.net>,
Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> writes:

No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a
good small mobo for <70 Euro?

Does your mobo fit in a cell phone?

There is a lot of room between a PIC and an x86.

There are a lot of nice ARM chips that include flash and RAM.
I like the Atmel SAM7 series. There are many others.


Yes, if you need PCI slots, then a mobo is probably the right approach.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[JosephKK]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:51:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.
Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),
ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.
No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.
They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Then how come it is still not that common in embedded systems.

 

[Nico Coesel]

hal-usenet@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net (Hal Murray) wrote:

In article <hj2cmc$uah$1@news.albasani.net>,
Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> writes:


No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a
good small mobo for <70 Euro?

Does your mobo fit in a cell phone?

There is a lot of room between a PIC and an x86.

There are a lot of nice ARM chips that include flash and RAM.
I like the Atmel SAM7 series. There are many others.


Yes, if you need PCI slots, then a mobo is probably the right approach.

The upcoming Cortex devices will have PCI express. I expect somewhere
this summer.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:52:10 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54c708.774112562@news.planet.nl>:


No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?

http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires.

If you need an embedded solution, and have space, there is time to market,
design cost, and cost of software tools.
This is 90 % of all that of the shelf for 70 Euro.

If you design from scratch (with any processor), and say need
USB
PCI
Par port
serial
SATA
then you are in for a lot more, a LOT more.

I was comparing an off-the-shelf solution to your off-the-shelf
solution.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:57:51 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b55e3ef.847047828@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:52:10 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54c708.774112562@news.planet.nl>:


No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?


http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires.

If you need an embedded solution, and have space, there is time to market,
design cost, and cost of software tools.
This is 90 % of all that of the shelf for 70 Euro.

If you design from scratch (with any processor), and say need
USB
PCI
Par port
serial
SATA
then you are in for a lot more, a LOT more.

I was comparing an off-the-shelf solution to your off-the-shelf
solution.

Then mine came a out a whole lot better

 

[krw]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:53:54 -0800,
"JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:51:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.
Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),
ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.
No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.
They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Then how come it is still not that common in embedded systems.

The 80186/8 were quite popular in the embedded space.

 

[RogerN]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kzw3n.7124$nR4.2684@newsfe01.iad...

RogerN wrote:
Years back I played some with PIC microcontrollers but I've heard that
manufacturers are making better microcontrollers for less money.

Yes, PIC included. They have everything from 8bit 6pin chips that cost
cents, to 32bit processors that cost about $5.

Not looking for professional ICE or anything but maybe something
competitive with Microchips in circuit programmer/debugger. I was
considering buying Microchips ICD3 with PICDEM 2 board for $230,

Forget the ICD3, the PICkit3 is all you need for program and debug, it's
essentially the same as the ICD3 but much cheaper.
The PICkit 3 on it's own is only $45, or a bit more with a demo board
included.
See my review:
http://www.eevblog.com/2009/10/21/eevblog-39-pickit-3-programmerdebugger-review/
Don't take in all the negative stuff, that's only in comparison to the
older PICkit2, it's actually a good programmer/debugger and is all you
will need.

Atmel have a similar priced ISP programmer, but it doesn't do debug.

Don't touch third party or kit programmers, really, they are not worth the
hassle.

but
thought maybe something would be a better choice. I'm considering
Atmels line but wanted some input on others worth checking into.

Atmel and PIC are essentially the "big two" (argue away...), you'd
probably only go with something else unless you have a specific need.

Any recommendations on favorite microcontrollers that I can get up an
running with for a reasonable amount of dollars?

The Arduino is arguably the easiest system to get up and running, and it's
all the rage, see my review:
http://www.eevblog.com/2009/11/21/eevblog-45-arduino-picaxe-and-idiot-assembler-programmers/
It uses an Atmel.
There is the PICAXE too, but you probably want something more than that.

All other raw micros (PIC, AVR, MSP430 etc) and their associated
development systems are about as equally annoying to get running for the
beginner.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.eevblog.com

I just received my PICKit3 Debug Express from Microchip direct. One of the
primary interests over the PICKit3 alone was that it was supposed to come
with MPLAB C18, it's listed under package contents. But I've looked all
over the included CD and can't find it anywhere. Perhaps Dickhead didn't
get fired after all! Now He's removing software from the included CD.

This is aggravating because I installed an earlier version of MPLab IDE
hoping that it would install the MPLAB C18 compiler, it didn't. I'm very
tempted to give up on PIC's. I recently bought the PIC32 starter kit, have
to get a breakout board to connect to any of the I/O. I bought the
PIC18F4XK20 starter kit that comes with a PICKit2, so far I like it better
than the PICKit 3. I tried Debugging with the boards that each came with,
PICKit2 worked, PICKit3 failed. It's frustrating that you have to hunt for
what they claim is included in the package.

At this point I'm about ready to try AVR's with the free C compiler and
perhaps an Arduino compiler. I don't mind being stumped on a project but
not at the point that you have to register for 24/7 support just to ask them
where on the CD is the software is located. So far tonight I've been at it
for 4 hours and can't even find the "Package Contents", very poorly
documented.

RogerN

 

[RogerN]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kzw3n.7124$nR4.2684@newsfe01.iad...

RogerN wrote:
Years back I played some with PIC microcontrollers but I've heard that
manufacturers are making better microcontrollers for less money.

Yes, PIC included. They have everything from 8bit 6pin chips that cost
cents, to 32bit processors that cost about $5.

Not looking for professional ICE or anything but maybe something
competitive with Microchips in circuit programmer/debugger. I was
considering buying Microchips ICD3 with PICDEM 2 board for $230,

Forget the ICD3, the PICkit3 is all you need for program and debug, it's
essentially the same as the ICD3 but much cheaper.
The PICkit 3 on it's own is only $45, or a bit more with a demo board
included.
See my review:
http://www.eevblog.com/2009/10/21/eevblog-39-pickit-3-programmerdebugger-review/
Don't take in all the negative stuff, that's only in comparison to the
older PICkit2, it's actually a good programmer/debugger and is all you
will need.

Atmel have a similar priced ISP programmer, but it doesn't do debug.

Don't touch third party or kit programmers, really, they are not worth the
hassle.

but
thought maybe something would be a better choice. I'm considering
Atmels line but wanted some input on others worth checking into.

Atmel and PIC are essentially the "big two" (argue away...), you'd
probably only go with something else unless you have a specific need.

Any recommendations on favorite microcontrollers that I can get up an
running with for a reasonable amount of dollars?

The Arduino is arguably the easiest system to get up and running, and it's
all the rage, see my review:
http://www.eevblog.com/2009/11/21/eevblog-45-arduino-picaxe-and-idiot-assembler-programmers/
It uses an Atmel.
There is the PICAXE too, but you probably want something more than that.

All other raw micros (PIC, AVR, MSP430 etc) and their associated
development systems are about as equally annoying to get running for the
beginner.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.eevblog.com

I'm glad I watched your video, because of that I bought the PIC18 starter
kit that came with the PICKit 2. The PICKit 2 works great, but the PICKit 3
doesn't work, sometimes I get a Read to work but if I try to program or
debug I get errors. I swap the PICKit 2, works fine, PICKit 3, power on,
various errors depending on what you try to do.

RogerN

 

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:57:51 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b55e3ef.847047828@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:52:10 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54c708.774112562@news.planet.nl>:


No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?


http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires.

If you need an embedded solution, and have space, there is time to market,
design cost, and cost of software tools.
This is 90 % of all that of the shelf for 70 Euro.

If you design from scratch (with any processor), and say need
USB
PCI
Par port
serial
SATA
then you are in for a lot more, a LOT more.

I was comparing an off-the-shelf solution to your off-the-shelf
solution.

Then mine came a out a whole lot better

If more expensive is better...

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:41:50 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b574e1a.939762656@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:57:51 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b55e3ef.847047828@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:52:10 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b54c708.774112562@news.planet.nl>:


No, this is true, why bother with ARM when you can get a good small mobo for <70 Euro?



http://www.alternate.nl/html/product/Moederborden_Socket_441/ASRock/A330GC/-1079713/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Moederborden&l2=Intel&l3=Socket+Atom
8 Watt!

Now you are trying to sell me a car without seats and tires.

If you need an embedded solution, and have space, there is time to market,
design cost, and cost of software tools.
This is 90 % of all that of the shelf for 70 Euro.

If you design from scratch (with any processor), and say need
USB
PCI
Par port
serial
SATA
then you are in for a lot more, a LOT more.

I was comparing an off-the-shelf solution to your off-the-shelf
solution.

Then mine came a out a whole lot better

If more expensive is better...

More features is better, for example a babana is cheaper, but has less features.

 

[JosephKK]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:09:47 -0600, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:53:54 -0800,
"JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:51:31 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:08:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b538770.692296890@news.planet.nl>:

Why move? PICs last as long as the FLASH last, so does your ARM.
without rewriting from scratch if you have to.

Product lifetime... think about it.

Changing product requirements? Products getting obsolete? A lot of
people don't realize it but for companies that do software development
the software is the most valuable asset the company owns in terms of
investment. Having to rewrite and retest known-good-code is a huge
waste of money.

That is why PICs are so nice, they have been around for ages,
Microchip keeps making them, the old architectures are still around
after all this time, very easy to add a feature, I just did that yesterday.
Unlike some other manufacturers who obsolete architectures and chips on an almost weekly basis.
Or have great chips on paper that you cannot buy anywhere however (Xilinx comes to mind),
ridiculously expensive if you have to get low quantities,.
No foe me PIC anytime, they are the work horse of industry.
ARM is just an obscure idea that has been trying to make mainstream for years, and never succeeded.
They have good a PR team perhaps.
The next step up after a PIC is a x86 mobo for embedded systems.

Then how come it is still not that common in embedded systems.

The 80186/8 were quite popular in the embedded space.

Nice historical note. At the time there was few 16 bit chips for embedded use.
The i860 and i960 were also popular for a time; as was/are some 68K derivatives,
which are still in common use.