Starting with Microcontrollers

[MetalheadGautham]

Character displays (of the type you would usually find in a terminal which is interfaced with printf() in standard C).

If Atmel doesn't have them, then I guess I can still use PIC since there is the cpik compiler which is neat enough for linux.

I just want to know WHICH to start with. Obviously the thing I'm looking for is cheapness and easiness to interface.

 

[3v0]

The easy thing to do is to use a LCD display with the driver chip on the display. This is the common way.

In c you can use fprinf(destPointer,format_string,....); to print to any device so long as the desPointer points to a driver that will print a single character.

In C18 it is a bit different in that you use H_USER in place of the destPointer. That is explained in the manual.

But let me say again. If you are doing this sort of IO any 8 bit micro controller will work.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

The easy thing to do is to use a LCD display with the driver chip on the display. This is the common way.

Got any links to sample code ?

In c you can use fprinf(destPointer,format_string,....); to print to any device so long as the desPointer points to a driver that will print a single character.

In C18 it is a bit different in that you use H_USER in place of the destPointer. That is explained in the manual.

You mean like

fprintf(H_USER, "Hello World!\n");

is the equivalent of

printf("Hello World!\n");

???
And do you have a link to the .pdf of the manual ?

But let me say again. If you are doing this sort of IO any 8 bit micro controller will work.

OK. Then what capabilities do the special "LCD" microcontrollers have ?

 

[3v0]

The microchip **broken link removed** has the C18 lib manual that documents their H_USER info.

Yes it prints "Hello World" to the LCD if the driver has been setup. There are several drivers out there for various LCD controllers. If I do not have my wires crossed the HD44780 is the most popular. I expect that C18 XLCD supports it.

But when starting I suggest you start with simple things like light leds and such. Then move ahead when you are more comfortable.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

Thanks. The documentation was really helpful. Cleared up most of my doubts regarding fprintf() and printf() implementation in microcontrollers.

 

[DirtyLude]

Late post, but..
I'm also seeing mixed signals. Power and easy to use are generally mutually exclusive.

The easiest starter for Cortex-M3 is probably the LPCXpresso. With this, the platform is tied to the code sized limited CodeRed development environment.
NXP Semiconductors - Microcontrollers [LPCXpresso]

You can also try the MBED, which is a powerful LPC1768, but has a simple web based development platform. It's not a serious solution for final products, though.
Rapid Prototyping for Microcontrollers | mbed