Electronics > Beginners

Beginner Components?

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Mechanical Menace:

--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 10:54:30 pm ---It seems like that argument would also apply to assembly language,
--- End quote ---

Oh if timing is critical hand coded asm is sometimes the only option. But advantages of C  is it's abstract enough to be more human friendly and easily portable while still giving you brilliant access to the hardware. Modern compilers also in most cases give you just as fast a result as asm, and believe it or not in some cases faster results than all but the greatest asm treebird could manage. And in those cases where asm is the only real option you can write just that function in it.

Personally I'd also say C is no harder to use than JavaScript either tbh.


--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 11:06:49 pm ---I don't need to learn another language since I have espruino, and if I don't have to, I'm not going to...

--- End quote ---

And while that lasts fairy fluff. But MCUs are a much different place to where JavaScript was designed to be used, you're not having to may not last as long as you think. You'll probably need to become fluent in C to just follow many an example for MCUs even if you don't outgrow espuriono  though.

BlueBill:
My first computer was a COSMAC ELF1802 I build around 1977. I can program in 6502 & PIC assembler, plus BASIC (I blame early PCs as it was included in ROM). I used to program in PASCAL (all but a dead language, but I liked it) and I'm just now getting around to learning C. I even looked at Forth but always avoided C... Till now.

In that time I've never seen javascript as a viable Microcontroller language (that ARM3 is more a CPU than MPU). Most cheap & cheerful MPUs have very limited everything (RISC,kHz to MHz speeds, kilobytes of RAM & Flash) but great bit manipulation and high current I/O > 20mA is common and a wide supply range 1.8V - 5.5 isn't uncommon. Your Espruino is $39, where as a typical PIC or AVR MPU sells for less than a cheeseburger. PICs and AVR are sold blank, you can erase, program & debug (with a debugger) them with a cheap programmer. The Espruino is preprogrammed with a javascript interpreter. Similar to how a BASIC Stamp was ~20 years ago.

C is a compiled language, efficient and very popular. It's pretty much the go to language for Microcontrollers as it's available for all of them. ANSI C is not that obtuse and has been around forever (and it feels like it). I looked at some of those code examples on the Espurino site, IMHO you'll have no problem with C.

JacobEdward:

--- Quote from: Mechanical Menace on February 24, 2015, 11:22:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 10:54:30 pm ---It seems like that argument would also apply to assembly language,
--- End quote ---

Oh if timing is critical hand coded asm is sometimes the only option. But advantages of C  is it's abstract enough to be more human friendly and easily portable while still giving you brilliant access to the hardware. Modern compilers also in most cases give you just as fast a result as asm, and believe it or not in some cases faster results than all but the greatest asm treebird could manage. And in those cases where asm is the only real option you can write just that function in it.

Personally I'd also say C is no harder to use than JavaScript either tbh.

--- End quote ---

It's not about difficulty... it's like saying, go learn Japanese in order to skip these two or three steps on a business document (where those two or three steps are relatively insignificant in comparison to the entire task)... I think most people would say they'd rather just go through the extra two steps... and the same is true in reverse for C for creating a web app


--- Quote from: Mechanical Menace on February 24, 2015, 11:22:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 11:06:49 pm ---I don't need to learn another language since I have espruino, and if I don't have to, I'm not going to...

--- End quote ---

And while that lasts fairy fluff. But MCUs are a much different place to where JavaScript was designed to be used, you're not having to may not last as long as you think. You'll probably need to become fluent in C to just follow many an example for MCUs even if you don't outgrow espuriono  though.

--- End quote ---

There's already a lot of support for Javascript based MCU's (I've already successfully interfaced a RFID module via a SPI connection and there are all kinds of modules pre built ready to go...)

To be honest, I kinda think the only reason someone like me would ever swap is socially based instead of some technical limitation... we will see though and I'll keep you informed.

iamdarkyoshi:

--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 08:09:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: iamdarkyoshi on February 23, 2015, 06:12:05 pm ---If you want a good play with inductors, build a joule thief and then try to modify it yourself to operate a flourescent tube instead of an LED. it can be done, but tounge angle is important  :-/O

--- End quote ---

Do you know of a really good tutorial on Joule thief's for beginners?  Something that has a basic set of listed parts I can find cheaply and experiment with?

--- End quote ---
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Joule-Thief/?ALLSTEPS=
Try this one. I made mine using an off the shelf NPN transistor.

JacobEdward:

--- Quote from: iamdarkyoshi on February 24, 2015, 11:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: JacobEdward on February 24, 2015, 08:09:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: iamdarkyoshi on February 23, 2015, 06:12:05 pm ---If you want a good play with inductors, build a joule thief and then try to modify it yourself to operate a flourescent tube instead of an LED. it can be done, but tounge angle is important  :-/O

--- End quote ---

Do you know of a really good tutorial on Joule thief's for beginners?  Something that has a basic set of listed parts I can find cheaply and experiment with?

--- End quote ---
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Joule-Thief/?ALLSTEPS=
Try this one. I made mine using an off the shelf NPN transistor.

--- End quote ---

Thanks a bunch :-)

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