cheap development system

[nbucska]

Anyone knows about free or cheap development system
for microcontrollers (HW and SW) please post data and prices.

<nbucska@pcperipherals DOT com> subj: eng-tips
read FAQ240-1032

 

[richs]

http://www.microchip.com

Assembler and simulator. Does their popular line
of PIC microcontrollers.

All you need is a PC and a programmer.

On the internet, you can buy a "Tait" programmer
for about $14.95 US (with all parts except a wall wart
for power and a DB25 to DB25 straight through cable).

Although it takes a while, you can/used to (don't know
any more) get free samples from Microchip on some of
their PIC devices.

That and a logic probe, a power supply, a collection
of LEDs, resistors and switches are all you need for
hours and hours of fun and profit.

Cheers,

Rich S.

 

[solson16]

I got a sample from them a month or two ago of 2 16F88's, and they sent it quite quickly to boot. It's definately worth setting up an account with them.

 

[redtreetoad]

In this arena, I think it's better to examine the hardware platform first, and then determine the development environments.

Basic Stamp: (

http://www.parallax.com)

Upside: it's easy to program and they have tons of samples and good support. Great beginner environment. Also good for quick proof of concept or demos when you’re rushed.
Drawback: BASIC only. If you're just starting out its great (don't need to grind through assembly language). They use a hardware BASIC interpreter on the chip, so it will be slower than anything compiled to native H/W instructions (i.e., no inline assembler option). The chips are somewhat expensive, but the hardware programmers aren't (you can easily build your own) and the programming language is free (it's on the chip).

Microchip with MPLAB IDE: (

http://www.microchip.com)

Upside: Fast, cheap, very popular. Free MPLAB development environment. Lots of uProcs to choose from - almost too many .
Downside: You have to use Assembler which is tightly tied to the hardware (by design) so you're programming to the "bare metal".

Microchip with Microengineering Labs IDE: (

http://www.melabs.com)

Upside: Again, the hardware is fast, inexpensive, and popular. Great IDE support from Microengineering Labs. ME sells several different types of H/W programmers as the Microchip family of products is huge. Basic Stamp software compatibility for the non-Pro version, limited Basic Stamp compatibility for the Pro version.
Downside: You have to buy ME's software development environment. Software compiler: I started with PIC Basic ($99) then ended up with PIC Basic Pro ($199?). The latter is much more flexible and you could create arrays and many other common C-like programming constructs in BASIC. The Pro version supports inline assembly, step by step debugging, interrupt handling and some other stuff. H/W programmer: I have an EPIC programmer that supports a ZIF socket add-on for different chips (pin count).

Atmel: (

http://www.atmel.com)

Heard it's a great platform and I think they are the industry leader (in sale anyway), but I'm now ramped up on Microchip so I don't know when I'll have time to look at the environment. A friend of mine uses AvrX and swears by it. It’s an RTOS kernel that supports a C like API interface (see

http://www.barello.net/avrx).

/// Mike

 

[Skogsgurra]

If you need fast and powerful and would like to try a "hardware close" language, then nothing beats FORTH. Have a look at TinyArm. It is a complete system at a very affordable price. And you need no programmer. It is a flash processor with lots of ram and flash (at least for embedded control) I think that I have 128 kbyte flash and 64 kbyte RAM (haven't bothered to find out - it is ample anyhow). Development tools are free. I love it and I do quite quick things like toggle an I/O pin in microseconds - and that is with high-level FORTH, not assembler.

Google TinyArm. I will be sorry if you don't

 

[richs]

Hi-

You might want to look at cc5x. A FREE C compiler for the PIC chips. I've used it and kinda like it! The free version does come with math libraries (although not all of them). Seems real easy to use. I did notice some C contructs that didn't implement......

Interfaced well with the microchip assembler and simulator. I didn't bother doing a full "integration". It seems that you can put hooks in the MPLAB software to tie it closely to the compiler. I just took the mixed listing source and assembled it. Worked fine and I don't plan on changing my toolchain.

But, on the whole, the product was pretty well documented, generated readable cross-assembly code, worked and the price was right!

A quick google search will point you to them.

Cheers,
Rich S.