PIC versus AVR

[ExpAnonColin]

Oddly enough I was just talking to a professor and a TA about this topic earlier today and was coming here to see if anyone had commented on it.  Sure enough, second post down.  I'm going to go with AVR - I've used only PICs before, but the AVRs have so much pull due to the existance of a free compiler and cheap development platforms.  Also, I can program them natively in OS X, rather than boot camping into Windows XP.  I feel like, in some ways, PIC's are more on the windows side of the open/closed source dichotomy while AVR's are on the linux side.  At any rate, from a hobbyist's standpoint, it certainly seems like AVR is the way to go.  Though I will probably get a programmer for both!

-Colin

[RaceDriver205]

Yep AVRs the best

[Dave_B]

So you guys know, Digikey is shipping the avrdragon again.
It was out of stock for a while, but I had one on back order and just got a ship notification.
AVRDEVKIT1-ND  $49.95
Chuck

So you got it bundled with the STK500, right?  That's a fantastic deal.

[The Tone God]

So you got it bundled with the STK500, right?  That's a fantastic deal.

Sounds like it. I think I may get one too.

Andrew

[Dave_B]

You have both already, right?  I can see wanting a backup since it's not impossible to smoke them, but do you suppose they're clearing inventory for the next version?

[The Tone God]

You have both already, right?  I can see wanting a backup since it's not impossible to smoke them, but do you suppose they're clearing inventory for the next version?

Yes I have both plus a few other bits. I thought until recently that I might have damaged my Dragon as I was having problems with it. I thought this might be a good chance to replace it cheap. Turns out my Dragon, or atleast the important parts that I use, are ok. There have been reports of problems with some people blowing their Dragons probably mostly by static mis-handling. I thought a back up might be handy just to be safe especially at that cost. Maybe even configure it differently then my current Dragon which has certain headers and sockets soldered in.

Atmel has a history of running great deals on their development gear to encourage people to give them a try. So it could be one of those surprise sales or this might be a case of Atmel trying to clear out their STK500s. There have been rumours of a newer STK500 version coming out. At first it was being called the STK500X but now it looks like it's name is going to be STK600. I haven't heard anything definitive or official though about it so this is all speculation.

On a side note I noticed the new line of 14 pin AVRs are now shipping.

Andrew