[rescue] microcontroller stuff

[Michael Dombrowski]

On 20 Nov 2001, at 12:01, rescue-request at sunhelp.org wrote:

> If I wanted to start playing around with microcontroller stuff, would
> you guys recommend the Basic Stamp gear, or something else?
> 
> Bill

Nono, Stamp is dorky and AFAIK, there are no unix tools for it. 
You want Atmel AVR. The STK500 dev board is real cheap ($70 I 
think) and comes with everything you need to get started. There is 
a GNU toolchain for dev and many open-source tools for 
programming it. ASM is nice and easy, C is nice and easy, I 
haven't tried basic or anything else but they're out there. IMHO it's 
the best 8bit chip, until you get to stuff like 32bit ARM, AVR is so 
cool. I wouldn't reccomend the book "Programming and 
Customizing the AVR Microcontroller" just cause it's bad, use 
howtos from the internet instead. www.avrfreaks.net is a nice place 
to start as is comp.arch.embedded.

Mike