AVR-Chat

On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 02:22:50AM -0000, honamos@yahoo.com wrote:

> I have SOME experience with the PIC line, but I was told that AVR is
> way better.  I have absolutely no experience with AVR's, so I was
> hoping someone could help guide me.  What do I need to get, etc,
> etc.  I look forward to learning a lot from all of you, and I hope
> to contribute when I am knowledgable enough to.

If you don't have to worry too much about pinching pennies, on the
hardware side, I'd recommend an STK500 which usually runs around $80.
This one tool will get you a nice development board and device
programmer in one which has sockets for nearly every one of Atmel's
DIP parts, and will come with a sample part to play with right away.
It is well worth every penny.

But you can get started very cheaply.  My first experience with the
AVRs was with an AT90S2313 and a homemade cable programmer - probably
about $5 of parts.  And since I was using Unix and Atmel did not have
any tools for my OS and nothing else was available at the time, I
wrote my own software to download my programs to the on-chip flash.
That program became what is now AVRDUDE today.

On the software side, if you are running Mac, Linux, or FreeBSD you'll
want to be familiar with AVRDUDE at least for downloading programs to
your chip.  This is a program that simply takes your hex file and
loads it into the flash of your AVR where it can then run.  Also,
you'll want to take a look at the GNU toolset - binutils and gcc which
will give you an insdustrial strength C compiler and assembler.  The
avr-libc project will give you a mostly complete C runtime environment
for the AVR.  Quite a comprehensive development environment.  Most
Unix folks will feel right at home with this environment.

If you are using Windows, grab a copy of Atmel's AVR Studio.  This is
an IDE that includes an assembler and simulator and allows you to
program the chip.  Commercial C compilers are available for Windows,
but GCC is also available there in the form of WinAVR - the GNU
toolset already built for you, ready to be installed.  Also, you might
want to take a look at BASCOM-AVR - a Basic compiler for the AVR.  A
demo version is available at no charge which can generate up to 2K of
code before requiring you to purchase the full version.

I recently ran across a Forth implementation for the AVR - PFAVR:

     http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/~steriana/Python/pfavr/

You need a good chunk of RAM to run this, though, but it is pretty
neat.  It runs on my MAVRIC boards which have external RAM, or my
MAVRIC-II boards with the ram expansion add-on board.

If you know or would like to learn Forth, this looks pretty
interesting.

-Brian
-- 
Brian Dean
BDMICRO - ATmega128 Based MAVRIC Controllers
http://www.bdmicro.com/