RS232 & Microcontroller Communication

[Alharad]

Greetings friends!

I am new here, as you are probably aware of, but I'm looking forward to a productive time while I am here (I intend to be here as often as I can). I am in high-school and have obtained an interest in electronics a year or so ago. Programming is especially my interest, which I hope to learn more about! I have done some programming in C before, but not too much (blinking an LED is all, haha). What I'd like to do is "talk" to a PIC (someone told me they would work? Maybe there are others that might be better, but that's not for me to decide since I don't know much about micro-controllers). The end applications will most likely be an "intelligent" music system that I can control from my PC or what might be cooler applications? Maybe I could talk with radios too, and have an instant messaging wireless type of application.

Anyway, I talk too much, as my friends always tell me... I'm just looking for advice or suggestions, because I have absolutely no idea how to begin...I've looked through posts on here and I must say you guys are great!!! Keep it up

Well, thanks in advance (that's a common term, haha)!

Alharad

 

[Alharad]

On second thought, I think I want to do this in assembly.

 

[3v0]

I have not used it but I would think about starting with the $10 32 Bit ARM SDK mentioned here in several threads. The $10 gets you everything including a C compiler and in circuit debugging. A great deal.

They guy is right some of the time.

AVR's do have a nicer instruction set for coding in ASM. PIC ASM is harder but many people use it. A lot of people code in c and at that point all we ask it that the processor is fast enough and has enough memory to do the job.

I use PICs but I am in theory neutral on the subject and as such do not care to comment on the chips. Doing so seems to be pointless in that people like what they like.

Regarding MPLAB

MPLAB support for C is and other high level languages it good. It is up to the langauge developers to supply integration support. If your language does not work with MPLAB contact your language people/vendor.

MPLAB X is now in beta and will run on all 3 platforms. I expect some people who fancy a less helpful IDE will be staying with version 8.

 

[arhi]

talk to a mcu ? from where? from PC?

if your want to talk to mcu from PC you should really think about "finding PC with serial port is very hard now days" so a mcu with USB support should be a good choice... in the 8bit PIC range a 18F4550 (or 18F2550 is his smaller brother) is one with a lot of sample code you can learn from, and on the 16bit PIC you have PIC24FJ64GB002 that is my favorite .. (comes in trough hole 28pin package) ... The PIC24FJ64GB002 comes with not as much examples as 18F4550 but it is great chip, not too expensive, easy to work with ...

 

[Alharad]

I've decided I want to use an AVR and the language is assembly. Before I start my big project with RS232 and the micro-controller, I should probably learn how to program them and all that. Can someone help me in starting with AVR in assembly and if you know any good tutorials?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I've decided I want to use an AVR and the language is assembly. Before I start my big project with RS232 and the micro-controller, I should probably learn how to program them and all that. Can someone help me in starting with AVR in assembly and if you know any good tutorials?

You might try asking in the AVR sub-forum, here's it's mainly PIC's - although if you were to use PIC's it's all covered in my tutorials.

 

[Alharad]

Hi!

Okay, that sounds like a plan. I didn't notice that sub-forum before, so I'm glad you pointed that out to me!

You guys are awesome!