[time-nuts] favorite microcontroller module?

Gary Chatters gcarlistaa at garychatters.com
Fri Feb 15 23:35:08 EST 2008


John Miles wrote:
>> I just bought a book called "making things talk" from O'Reilly. I just
>> started reading it. The book looks fine but it appears that most of the
>> projects are based on the Arduino line of microcontroller modules and
>> they use the processing/wiring language. I am not crazy about learning
>> another language or using an IDE that shields me from details I ought to
>> know. I can program reasonably well in Python and I can get by with PHP
>> and C. I use Linux and am comfortable with it.
>>
>> Is anyone out there using a similar product that can be programmed in
>> Python, PHP, C or another common language?
> 
> I'm a strong partisan of the AVR architecture.  Cheap, effective, and
> supported by GCC.
> 
> Avoid *any* architecture that requires you to buy somebody's proprietary C
> compiler.  There's no excuse for that.
> 
> -- john, KE5FX
> 

The Arduino is based on AVR.  I am guessing it is something like the 
PICAXE which is based on PIC, but haven't really figured it out.

I, too, like the AVR for 8-bit apps.  Well, I have only used it on one 
project but it worked out well for that one.  I used the free IDE from 
Atmel and programmed it in assembler.  This project involved interrupt 
handling and data shuffling, so the assembler coding worked out OK. 
Otherwise, one should get the GCC C compiler.  Forth is available for 
the AVR.  Other languages may be available, but the AVR is a small 8-bit 
microcontroller, so something like Python might not be available.

Once you get to 32-bit processor like the ARM then you can find just 
about any language if you pick a system with enough memory.  The ARM 
architecture is used in everything from small microcontroller chips 
(Atmel) to microprocessors on small SBCs with megabytes of memory 
running Linux.

We may not be answering your question too well.  How much of a system 
are you looking for: microcontroller chip, board module, or SBC?

73,
Gary



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