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Hi, I have been really interested in becomming a firmware developer using c/c++.
I was wondering if anyone knew of any starter kits that are out there that I can use to load c/c++ code onto the chip from my computer and have it do something.. or if there are any websites that talk about this subject.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated..
Dan
There is alot of "using chips" and programming them when you get into microcontrollers and robots.
Motorola makes alot of good microcontrollers (HC11 series). These store data in RAM, once the power dies, so does your code on the chip; you need a backup battery. C/ASM, ~$30
You can get COP8 microcontrollers from national semiconductor. COP8's are high-performance microcontrollers with flash memory(The data won't die when the power supply is off). C(not sure)/ASM, ~$10-15
There's the old, reliable, and famous PIC controllers, also by Motorola. C/ASM, ~$10(crap 1's) - 50(awesome 1's)
Or you could always go with an Embedded PC. It's a whole PC that comes in 386, 486, and pentium flavours. It's you single-board solution on a board that's ~4x6 inches. C/C++/x86ASM, a whopping $200-$800. Some have a "disk-on-chip" which allows you to have DOS/windows on-board... literally!
Thank you very much for the info. That really helps me out in figuring out where to start my journey!!!
Do you or anybody know if there are some kind of starter kits out there for using these microcontrollers?
Thanks,
Dan
Motorola 68HC11: www.motorola.com MORE: Gives you 32 I/O ports to connect things to.
COP8: Go to www.national.com They have special offers and dev.tools for the COP8. Do what I did: get the free sample sent to you(US/canada only). MORE: Can give upto 52 I/O ports(I think). COP8. NS GIVES OUT SOME FREE SAMPLES.
Parallax BASIC STAMP: I didn't tell you about this one. You can program it with a serial cable(like all of the other ones above). And you can program it with Basic. try www.parallax.com (chip itself) or www.arrick.com for a starter kit --- BOE(board of education). BASICSTAMP I gives 8 I/O, BS II gives 16. You can network chips together. BS I: ~$20US, BS II: ~$30US
OOPIC: I forgot about this one as well. People on these forums would probably mostly appeal to these wonderful microcontrollers---You can program them with VB!!!(code most like VB5) and use classes! MORE: 32 I/O, I2C bus, can network up to 128 OOPICs together.
OOPIC: ~$40US
By the way, which microcontrollers tend to be used more in the industry and with what programming language? I would rather concentrate on something that would benefit my career in the future.
Is PIC and OOPIC compatible technologies or are they totally different?
Also, do you know of any forums on the subject of microcontrollers and embedded software?
Thanks again for all your help.
P.S. I took a look at www.oopic.com and was really impressed by their product. I'm going to be ordering their starter kit to play around with!
Dan
PIC(Programmable Intergrated Circuit) and OOPIC(Object-Oriented Programmable Intergrated Circuit) seem like the same, and they are, only that PIC uses C and Assembly, while OOPIC uses Visual Basic. With PIC, you have to make your own routines and EVERYTHING (init, etc...) from scratch by coding. OOPIC is like VB; The chip has functions built in(and classes like OOutput,OInput,OServo,OButton).
The industry standard microcontroller would probably be between the 68HC11(motorola), PIC, or embedded PC(although expensive). They don't really use the BASIC stamps or OOPIC because C/ASM are better languages(IMHO ;) ). The COP8 is very new, and is coming into use by the industry.