AVR-Chat

--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Hahn" <everphilski@...> wrote:
>
> Good Afternoon,
> 
> I'm looking into digging into AVR's and looking for some advice before
> I spend any money. My goal is to do some robotics control projects,
> preferably programming in C/C++ although I think it would be valuable
> to learn the native instruction set as well. No more than 4 motors and
> 4-10 simple sensors to start, so not an insane amount of I/O or I/O
> processing.

this is probably heresy, but i like the arduino.  it has a stamp-like
api designed for artists for when you're feeling braindead or you can
cowboy up and use avr-gcc.  the thing runs about $35, has a mega168
with bootloader installed and an ftdi usb-serial interface on-board. 
there are various stackable shields available for interfacing zigbee,
ethernet, motors and whatnot.

there are also breadboardable kit versions for between 12.50 and 17.50
that will not hold the shields and do not have the ftdi interface
onboard.  these do have headers for various max232 and ftdi interfaces
to plug in.  adafruit industries will have a breadboardable kit with
the ftdi interface onboard available in about a month.

you can check out tom igoe's book "making things talk" for an idea of
the possibilities using the api.

i also kind of like pololu's baby orangutan.