[OT] Assembly and Microcontrollers

[Charles Steinkuehler]

Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) wrote:

> Does anyone know of a good kit out there that would enable me to hook a 
> microcontroller board to me computer via some port and then transfer a 
> program written on my computer over to it.  I found a kit from Radio 
> Shack that allows it:
> 
>  http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F006%5F001%5F003%5F000&product%5Fid=276%2D625 
> <http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F006%5F001%5F003%5F000&product%5Fid=276%2D625>
> 
> But the programming language it uses is BASIC, which in my opinion is a 
> very ugly language, and not really helpful.  I’m hoping to find one that 
> uses either C or Assembly (preferably Assembly, because I don’t know how 
> to program in assembly yet)
> 
> Any ideas?  I would prefer a board that is already built, or one with 
> very easy instructions, because I have no idea how to read a schematic 
> yet.  I could learn (it’s on the list of things to do), but I would 
> prefer to wait, and work with something less expensive my first time out.
> 
> Ok, Make sense?  Anyone know of anything out there?

Basic stamps really aren't all that bad, but I can understand not 
wanting to work with one (I never have myself).

You can find all sorts of inexpensive boards and cheap or free 
development boards to do what you want, so you might want to think about 
what type of microcontroller you'd like to learn about.  There are the 
already mentioned PIC chips, which are *REALLY* simple, with a fairly 
limited instruction set.  Other options you might want to consider:

- Atmel AVR: lots of registers, harvard architecture

- TI MPS-430: Conventional microcontroller, very low-power

- Motorola (now Freescale) HC05, HC08, HC11: conventional, been around
   for ages

- 8051 derivatives (made by god and everybody): These are perhaps the
   most wide-spread microcontroller, but IMHO you have to be kind of
   warped in the head to understand the architecture (it's originally an
   Intel design, so if you think the x86 family arcitecture makes sense,
   the 8051 is the chip for you!).

You can get various eval boards for these controllers from a lot of 
places.  Look around on the vendors site, where they'll typically list 
third parties making eval boards.  I personally have done my most recent 
work with AVR's, and can recommend them and point you to the 
www.avrfreaks.com site which has *LOTS* of handy info.

Also, you mention you want to write assembly, but have you ever 
considered forth?  For sheer coolness, if I was starting out to learn 
about microcontrollers today, I'd probably start with writing Forth for 
the Lego Mindstorms RCX controller which uses an Hitachi H8/3292 
microcontroller (note: you can interleave assembly code with the forth 
as well, so you could ease into learning assembly):

http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbForth/homePage.html

You can even get O'Reilly books to show you step-by-step how to do about 
anything you'd want!

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net