AVR-Chat

I am fairly new to the microcontroller.  I am very enthusiastic about 
the Atmel ATMega128.  It seems that the Mavric-IIb board gives me just 
what I need to power my applications.

What else will I need to be able to program it to do my bidding.

Obviously, I need the Mavric-IIb board, and a power supply.  I think I 
need a programmer interface such as the AVRISP which I can get from 
Digikey for $29.00.  I need some language complier such as GCC or 
Bascom-AVR.  I'd love suggestions for a FREE or very inxepensive 
compiler.

What else will I need to make it work?

In the past I have used the Basic-X platform which is actually very 
nice for a very user friendly environment.  I need more horsepower!  I 
want to see what the cost will be to get a fully functioning 
microcontroller.

-Tony

I downloaded AVR-GCC and it looks quite complete.  I will try to 
work a little with it.

It seems cumbersome to have to "make" everything manually each time, 
but I am sure it will become easy.

I'd rather just have a menu selection called "compile and run"

-Tony
--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, David Kelly <dkelly@h...> wrote:
> 
> On Apr 7, 2005, at 7:49 AM, arhodes19044 wrote:
> 
> > Obviously, I need the Mavric-IIb board, and a power supply.  I 
think I
> > need a programmer interface such as the AVRISP which I can get 
from
> > Digikey for $29.00.  I need some language complier such as GCC or
> > Bascom-AVR.  I'd love suggestions for a FREE or very inxepensive
> > compiler.
> 
> The AVRISP is a very good value but it only loads code. You need a 
JTAG 
> ICE to do debugging. The Atmel JTAGICE-mkII at $300 is a safe bet 
but 
> there are also good sub-$50 options. Depends on how much risk your 
time 
> is worth.
> 
> AVR-GCC has become an excellent embedded compiler. Many years ago 
I 
> took a similar look at hc11-gcc and found it seriously wanting. 
There 
> was no doubt then that even the worst commercial hc11 tools were 
> better. It may be there are commercial AVR C compilers which are 
better 
> than avr-gcc but if so one is splitting hairs when making the 
judgment 
> call.
> 
> I run my debugging MAVRIC-II off a lead-acid battery. When I shut 
down 
> for the night I attach the charger. Is all a matter of "what I had 
> laying around."
> 
> --
> David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@H...
> 
=====================================================================
===
> Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.

On Apr 7, 2005, at 7:49 AM, arhodes19044 wrote:

> Obviously, I need the Mavric-IIb board, and a power supply.  I think I
> need a programmer interface such as the AVRISP which I can get from
> Digikey for $29.00.  I need some language complier such as GCC or
> Bascom-AVR.  I'd love suggestions for a FREE or very inxepensive
> compiler.

The AVRISP is a very good value but it only loads code. You need a JTAG 
ICE to do debugging. The Atmel JTAGICE-mkII at $300 is a safe bet but 
there are also good sub-$50 options. Depends on how much risk your time 
is worth.

AVR-GCC has become an excellent embedded compiler. Many years ago I 
took a similar look at hc11-gcc and found it seriously wanting. There 
was no doubt then that even the worst commercial hc11 tools were 
better. It may be there are commercial AVR C compilers which are better 
than avr-gcc but if so one is splitting hairs when making the judgment 
call.

I run my debugging MAVRIC-II off a lead-acid battery. When I shut down 
for the night I attach the charger. Is all a matter of "what I had 
laying around."

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.

Antonthy had said:

"[..]

[..] I need some language complier such as GCC or
Bascom-AVR.  I'd love suggestions for a FREE or very inxepensive
compiler.

[..]"

Tony has said:

"I downloaded AVR-GCC and it looks quite complete.  I will try to
work a little with it.

It seems cumbersome to have to "make" everything manually each time,
but I am sure it will become easy.

I'd rather just have a menu selection called "compile and run""


Perhaps then you should program in Ada with GNAT which is part of
GCC. Instead of having to write a make file as with other languages, it is
sufficient to let GCC determine which dependencies to compile if using
Ada, in a manner similar to Sun's javac for Java.

> "I downloaded AVR-GCC and it looks quite complete.  I will try to
> work a little with it.
> 
> It seems cumbersome to have to "make" everything manually each time,
> but I am sure it will become easy.
> 
> I'd rather just have a menu selection called "compile and run""

Perhpas look at eclipse, which is an IDE designed to work with GCC tools.

http://www.eclipse.org/

-- 
Dave Hylands
Vancouver, BC, Canada
http://www.DaveHylands.com/

Dave Hylands wrote:

> > "I downloaded AVR-GCC and it looks quite complete.  I will try to
> > work a little with it.
> >
> > It seems cumbersome to have to "make" everything manually each time,
> > but I am sure it will become easy.
> >
> > I'd rather just have a menu selection called "compile and run""
>
> Perhpas look at eclipse, which is an IDE designed to work with GCC tools.
>
> http://www.eclipse.org/
>
Yesss! I use Eclipse all the time and its my favorite IDE for Java, C, 
XML, UML all of which I use. Eclipse has a feature that automatically 
compiles your project whenever you change a source file. The integration 
with WinAVR/GCC works really well. To use Eclipse with GCC you will need 
the C/C++ plugin which is called CDT. You can download it from the link 
on http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/.

I would slightly alter Dave's statement about Eclipse being designed for 
GCC tools as it started as general purpose IDE framework that supports 
plugins with Java being one of the first. The fact that it works so well 
with GCC tools is mostly down to good software architecture by the IBM 
programmers who created Eclipse as Open Source software. The team that 
created the CDT plugin have also done a good job although there are a 
few things that could be better integrated with Eclipse base function.

Mike