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General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: iamwhoiam on June 13, 2012, 12:53:14 am

Title: Help out an AVR n00b... in fact, not even n00b status yet!
Post by: iamwhoiam on June 13, 2012, 12:53:14 am

Hi guys. I am looking for quality material on AVR programming, namely:

1/ Some decent videos

2/ The "de facto" programmer, in the same way "PICkit" range is for PICs

3/ Some good places to learn, preferably ASM but C too if it is there

4/ If possible, a description of which AVR is which (IE: the ones Dave snubs his nose at would be considered "old" to me)

Cheers me dears :D

Title: Re: Help out an AVR n00b... in fact, not even n00b status yet!
Post by: hlavac on June 13, 2012, 01:03:44 am

2: I recommend the AVR Dragon, it is relatively cheap, officially supported, good for ICSP, JTAG, even high voltage parallel programming and can do debugwire as well.
Have been using it for quite a long time now and I like it.

3: of course avrfreaks.net (http://www.avrfreaks.net/)

Title: Re: Help out an AVR n00b... in fact, not even n00b status yet!
Post by: alm on June 13, 2012, 01:25:41 am

Atmel AVRISP Mk. II would be the slightly cheaper option. More robust mechanical (case) and electrical design, but less features than the Dragon. Lacks debugging support (essential for some people, other people never use it) and high-voltage programming (useful if you screwed up the fuse settings or want to use /RST as a GPIO pin). Just like the PICkit, there are lots of clones, but I'd prefer a genuine one unless you're really strapped for cash.

The ATmega48/88/168/328p(a) are popular, they are used in the Arduino and are an excellent place to start (plenty of IO pins for many applications, fair number of peripherals, debugWire support). The ATmega 164/324/644/1284p(a) is a relatively recent model if you need more IOs or RAM/ROM. ATtiny2313 is popular for smaller applications. ATtiny261/461/861a is interesting if you need lots of ADC channels. The various USB ATmegas (xxUx or AT90USBxxx) if you need USB connectivity. I'm not familiar with the Xmegas, even though they appear to be made of silicon as opposed to vapor these days.