PIC or AVR to get started?

[G. Hoffman]

I started out with PIC's and assembly, mostly because I wanted to have a better understanding of the basic operations of the chip.  The problem I'm having now is that I want to start using PIC18 stuff, which is really designed to work with C, and I'm having trouble getting my head around C. 


Gabriel

[harmless]

There are also other altenatives like the TI's MSP430 LaunchPad:

http://e2e.ti.com/group/msp430launchpad/w/default.aspx

There is also a DSP BoosterPack available for it:

http://e2e.ti.com/group/msp430launchpad/b/boosterpacks/archive/2012/03/27/texas-instruments-c5000-audio-capacitive-touch-boosterpack-430boost-c55audio1.aspx

I think the launchpad only has a single timer so trying to do more than 1 hand rolled PWM output would be difficult.  It's been a while since I looked into this but it seems far less capable than the avr stuff.

[artifus]

http://hackaday.com/2012/07/18/midi-swiss-army-knife-built-from-an-msp430/

[artifus]

got me an msp - couldn't resist at three quid including p&p - and am looking at quite a steep learning curve as i haven't done any real programming since writing my own games on a rubber keyed zx spectrum 48k in sinclair basic way back when. i may start an msp thread when i've had some time to tinker and have something worth sharing. also, just stumbled upon this: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/Launchprog#Was_ist_das_denn.3F so it could well turn out to be a gateway drug...

*edit* http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad_site/stellaris.html free draw for next generation $5 boards and http://www.ti.com/tool/launchxl-f28027 $17 dollar board coming soon.