Mark Haase wrote: : not trying to start a war here--
: i'm building a robot and i want to program a couple simple : microcontrollers to handle low level functions: a gearmotor and two : servos on one, and a controller for an srf04 on another. i/o with a : jstamp will probably be done by bit-banging. i basically need good : timers or pwm modules and a little bit of flash, ram, and eeprom.
Any of the micros (but perhaps the Parallax Stamps) can handle that.
: i primarily use a mac, but ive got an old wintel sitting around for when : i need it too. pics seem to have more configurations and an abundance of : cheap, prebuilt programmers. avrs have a simple programming interface : but i want something commercial, not homebuilt.
AVR uses the perfectly fine, and commercial AVRISP dongle via a serial port. Connect up a Keyspan USA 19HS USB/serial adapter to it, run AVR-GCC C compiler and use AVRDUDE downloader and you have the full AVR implementation on a pretty good GNU GCC compiler running natively in the MAC OSX environment. No need for a PeeCee at all. You won't get the AVR Studio, nor any kind of ICE functionality (yet) but you get everything else WITHOUT a Windoze box needed. I have this setup on my iBook running OSX 10.4.2 and it works fine. As for boards to use, Brian Dean has some very nice ATMEGA128 boards with lots of options and functionality. There are other simple demo boards out there too - All work with AVR-GCC.
Oh, did I mention that all of the above are free and open source? You have to drop $50 on the AVRISP, but, eh, TANSTAAFL.
: also the avrs seem to have esoteric product lines...like an entire LCD : avr line, a "battery" lcd line, etc.
Microchip does this too with a "USB" line, a "Ethernet" line, "motor power", etc.
: what are the pros/cons of each w.r.t. a robotics hobbyist? since i will : continue to use these on other little projects, a free c compiler would : be nice too.
I love both of them. I experiment with AVR's and use them in my robotics, I tend to use PIC's (with my PeeCee laptop) for commercial applications because I trust them not to obsolete a device during a project development cycle, which Atmel has yet to prove itself on...
YMMV, IMO etc., DLC
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