AVR-Chat

Dave,

I agree with you.

I started researching the PIC and the AVR seemed so much more simple and cheaper.

In the future I would like to see a magazine or something that deals with the AVR and CV using C. This sounds limiting since there are more options than I know about but wanting to learn. I have never used JTAG or the XMEGA's yet.

There is alot I don't know and would like something like this to learn from.

So far I have made a simon says, temp datalogger with thermostate with heating and cooling control (working on a VB2008 interface), lever meter using accelerometers and a LED dice cube.

Brian

--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Dave McLaughlin" <dave_mclaughlin@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Brian,
> 
>  
> 
> I started off with the PIC myself. I chose it because I could buy a cheap
> starter kit and start programming it easily. I then started using it in my
> work place and we purchased an ICE for it. For hobby use I was finding
> debugging a major issue without the ICE and I started to look around for
> something else. We had been using the National Semi COP8 and that had a
> cheap emulator but the cost of the compiler put me off of it. I then
> discovered the AT902313 and I found that I could by a cheapish emulator, the
> ICE200 and it could be used with the larger IC's like the 8515 at the time.
> I then progressed to the Mega devices and bought the JTAG ICE and then
> finally the JTAG ICE Mk II and have never looked back. If you use the AVR
> devices without the ICE, then you will not want to do debugging without one
> after you have. I know a lot of guys who programme without and put in things
> like toggling IO pins to show position of code but when you want to check
> the value of a variable and don't have a STDIO to print to, you will soon
> see what I mean. What I am trying to say is that the AVR has some excellent
> priced emulation tools that cover more devices than the PIC does.
> 
>  
> 
> I still use the AVR devices for all the small projects. There are some other
> great devices out there but the cost of development is a little on the high
> side. For me, the initial cost of the Codevision compiler and the yearly
> support has been worth it for over 8 years now. I have looked at the PIC
> again and again but the lack of low cost emulation (there are emulators but
> they don't cover all the devices, where my JTAG ICE now also covers the XMEG
> and the AVR32 devices) has put me off them. Also the fact that the
> architecture is not ideal for C and a decent compiler for it is still
> expensive.
> 
>  
> 
> The PIC has the advantage that nearly all the electronics magazines do
> articles on it so that is maybe why it is more popular.
> 
>  
> 
> If you look around the web at projects for both, you will probably find that
> most PIC projects are in either PIC Basic or assembler, whereas I have seen
> a lot more in C now for the AVR. WINAVR is a nice capable free compiler if
> you don't need a lot of libraries to get you going.
> 
>  
> 
> The above is just my opinion and in the past I have managed to convert a
> number of PIC users over to the AVR based on the above.
> 
>  
> 
> Dave.
> 
>  
> 
> From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of blue_eagle74
> Sent: 21 December 2009 09:50
> To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [AVR-Chat] magazine
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> I have been reading the circuit celler and nuts and volts. It seems that
> alot of projects are for the PIC. Is the PIC better to use? Is there a
> magazine mainly for the AVR that I don't know about? I'm not asking which is
> best but why all the PIC projects? To me the AVR is alot easier and cheaper
> to work with.
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>