Re: TI-H: Getting started, AVR vs PIC?


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Re: TI-H: Getting started, AVR vs PIC?




>Greetings all, and Grant in particular.
> 
>I am ready to start working with microcontrollers, and so am attempting
>to do some research on what to buy.  Its been recommended to me several
>times to start with the 16F84 PIC and a homebuilt programmer.  Since I
>have been talking to the people on a PIC oriented group, I haven't heard
>much about the AVR.  I'm wondering how much it would cost me to start
>with AVRs instead of PICs,


You can buy an AVR for $2 that is just like a $8 PIC.

All AVRs are ISP flash, most pics need UV lights.

>what would be a good AVR to start with (like
>what would give me a reasonable amount of onboard programming space,
>and be cheap,



1200 for beginner, 4414/8515 for advanced.

>requiring the fewest number of support chips).
>

You don't even -need- a crystal.  Just power source.

>Also, some reasons why I should go with the AVR instead of the PIC
>would be nice.



The AVR is new, the PIC is dieing.  Its a slow wannabe AVR

>PICs have a lot of users, so there is a fairly wide base
>of support, free code and a few free high level compilers,


The AVR has been arround for a year and a half and there are MANY good
sources for source code.

GCC has been ported to the AVR.
Small-C has been ported to the AVR.

Others also.

There are tons of AVR users on the atmel mailing lists.

>which will help
>with the learning curve (I.E., I CAN program in asm if necessary, but I'd
>prefer to start with something higher level until I need the performance
or size of asm).

References: