[O/T] Easily programmable microcontrollers?

[The Tone God]

Ok. This is where I stand on things right now.

I'm willing to write a series of lessons for beginners on using micro processors. It will be centered around the programming of processors using embedded C and the interfacing of the processors to various devices like LEDs, relays, logic ICs, switches, etc. It will not cover DSP since I think that would be out of scope for the topic. I would put out a lesson every couple of weeks or so depending on my free time and schedual.

Programmers

I already have a couple of Picstart Plus programmers so I haven't played with other homebrew programmers. I have the parts to build a few simple programmers that I found on the web but I haven't built or tried them yet. If this goes forward then I would put some time in trying them out to give an opinion on what to use for beginnners.

PIC vs. AVR

I agree the the AVR in most respects is better then the PIC but most of my experience is with PICs. I'll make the lessons less about what processor is being used and more about the actual programming and use of the processor. Most of the code developed in the lessons should be portable to the AVR with only a few minor changes.

For the vast majority of what people around here want to do the PIC has plenty of power. I think its a good enough place to start from. I've been wanting to play with AVRs for some time so this maybe a good excuse for me to learn about them while writting the lessons. I would then probably update the lessons to include an AVR section.

Forum

I had the same idea when I started thinking about writing the articles. A sub forum much like the beginners forum would be very helpful I think. It would make a good place to give help and exchange code. That would be up to Aron of course.

I think in order to make it worth doing a few more people would have to willing to participate.

Opinions are welcome.

Andrew

[Gilles C]

Cool! Very interesting days coming...

I always liked to mix both of my interests: digital and audio.

The forum could be inspired by this one.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/

Or ampage is another example of a multi-vocations forum.

Staying in the same subject, guitar effects, but from another angle.

An example of the kind of box that I would like to do: All my Boss (4)pedals in the same assembly, but controlled by a new set of switches. I'll make a drawing to show what I have in mind...

It could be used for DIY effects also of course.


GTechBlues