Hey everyone! I just completed my Arduino course and was planning to move onto something more professional like ATmega or PIC microcontrollers and processors. Can you guys please suggest which is the best place to start from? please let me know about different programming devices like Pickit and stuff im totally confused with them. Thanks in advance
So I recommend a virtual Intel 8085 CPU and Assembly language using the Java based simulator in the url below. That way you don’t have to spend any money on hardware until you have enough experience to make an informed choice in a world of slick profit oriented advertising.
REM install-avr-tools.bat by Bill Westfield (WestfW)
REM Find the avr-gcc tools that are part of an Arduino install, and
REM add them to the PATH for the duration of the current shell.
REM See [url]https://hackaday.io/project/19935[/url]
REM [url]https://github.com/WestfW/Arduino-avr-tools-install[/url]
which you can use to let you use the AVR GCC installed by Arduino from the command line or from an alternative IDE launched from a batch file.Depends in part what the OP is using micros for, just as part of his electronics hobby or as a path to employment ?
The advantage of the Arduino is that its so user friendly and well supported and wonder why folk knock it so much as it allows so many to venture into a new world of micros; but as said. agree it does not give much insight as to the real working of the chip.
Depends in part what the OP is using micros for, just as part of his electronics hobby or as a path to employment ?
The advantage of the Arduino is that its so user friendly and well supported and wonder why folk knock it so much as it allows so many to venture into a new world of micros; but as said. agree it does not give much insight as to the real working of the chip.
However not everyone can jump straight into Assembly code, particularly if doing so from home on their own without direct assistance as you would have if done at work or part of a college course etc.
We started out, many years ago, with Machine Code on National Semiconductor chips but thankfully other workfolk and Farnells tech reps around to help us get started.
Nothing about Arduino prevents you getting insight into the real working of the chip!
I really don't understand why so many people seem to think buying and using an Arduino restricts you to using only the Arduino libraries. It simply doesn't.
Hey everyone! I just completed my Arduino course and was planning to move onto something more professional like ATmega or PIC microcontrollers and processors. Can you guys please suggest which is the best place to start from? please let me know about different programming devices like Pickit and stuff im totally confused with them. Thanks in advance
Hi, this is my standard reply to this often asked question.
I personally don’t recommend The Arduino System because it was designed for people like artists with little technical knowledge so they could use libraries and ‘sketches’ to easily assemble (like Leggo) projects such as led lighting controllers for ice sculptures.
No embedded engineer would ever use Arduino, or recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about microprocessors. The only people recommending Arduino are Arduino users and Arduino kit and part sellers.
If you learn Arduino, you’re learning The Arduino System, you’re not learning microprocessors, even tho Arduino kits have a microprocessor in them.
Furthermore, the MEGA8 used in Arduino is ancient 8 bit technology, it was released way back in 1997!
When I started in embedded in 1976 it was a task and a half to get a bare cpu up and running, the 6800 needed special clocks etc, the 6802 with only the requirement for a single clock was a revelation. I was a technician back then and we were expected to know. There were no courses on Microprocessors because few places had them. My first micro was a National PACE 16 bit development system with a teletype and paper tape.
Nowadays of course, assembly is so easy because there are so many free tools, real and virtual that for anyone serious about 'learning microprocessors' the task is much easier than back then.
That's why I recommended a virtual 8085, nothing to spend and the software is free. The url links a great book and would provide a decent start to a person wanting to learn the basics of *microprocessors*.
I don't care that it's old, its real, everything is there and everything we now have was birthed back in those days. I don't care if it's hard, lots of things are hard, either do them, or do them not.
Any idiot can 'make' something with Arduino, but they won't know anything worthwhile about microprocessors afterwards.
Depends in part what the OP is using micros for, just as part of his electronics hobby or as a path to employment ?
The advantage of the Arduino is that its so user friendly and well supported and wonder why folk knock it so much as it allows so many to venture into a new world of micros; but as said. agree it does not give much insight as to the real working of the chip.
Nothing about Arduino prevents you getting insight into the real working of the chip!
You've got an editor. You've got a C compiler and assembler. You've got the headers with the register definitions. You've got a board with an AVR chip on it.
I really don't understand why so many people seem to think buying and using an Arduino restricts you to using only the Arduino libraries. It simply doesn't.
Huh, arduino and C++? That's not the best start from my point of view. I admit I do hate it.
C++ is way more complicated than C. Also not many MCUs can be programmed with that.
On top of that, Arduino C++ libraries are an absolute cryptic messy stuff, I never could understand a *** when trying to figure out something.
It happens like in Linux, it's all an uncontrolled mess, you make a project, it works, after 2 months it crashes on build spitting thousands of different errors because some library updated.
Of course, in that moment you don't have a clue of what or why it's happening, get ready for the happy following days debugging and punching the table until you finally find the culprit.
Exactly what i was thinking! everyone keeps on telling me that learning arduino is totally different from the actual method of using microprocessors and controllers
* The Arduino hardwere developers have had a history of making questionable design choices and mistakes. The most widely known one is the 0.16" gap between the two digital headers on the Uno, which makes it excessively awkward to use 0.1" pitch protoboard for a shield, and has been inherited by every full sized successor Arduino.
Im actually still a student and am trying to get into professional electronics field, not just a hobbyist