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Tech > Microcontrollers
Posted: Sunday, November 15, 2009
Microcontroller Resources
It has been a long time since I've done any work with dedicated or embedded microprocessors of any kind. I thought it was high time I corrected that—I can remember getting a lot of satisfaction out of building simple computers from scratch and programming them to do simple jobs. My inner geek was first nurtured in a high school where there were a surprising number of electronic geniuses always trying to outdo eachother. Weekend projects involved soldering irons and machine code. I learned about the joys and frustrations of always being on the steep part of the learning curve. (It's a little like the addictive nature of slot machines—the disappointment of ten failures is instantly erased by a single success. But if you've read this far, you probably know all about that.)
Fast forward to today. I decided to invest a little bit of effort in finding out just how steep that learning curve has become in the time that I have been away. So, I'm thinking about a series of informal articles about my new adventures with microcontrollers. This first one focuses on the learning resources that I've found on the web as I try to get back up to speed.
A skim of the relevant article on Wikipedia reassured me that things haven't changed all that much, even if the processors have become more powerful, smaller and cheaper. I decided to focus on two of the more popular microcontroller families: the AVR from Atmel and the PIC from Microchip.
Here's the list of the resources I've found so far:
General
The magazine Circuit Cellar has been around pretty much forever with lots of fascinating microcontroller projects and contests. E-zine version available.
Similarly interesting is Nuts & Volts magazine. Lots of projects, circuit ideas and advice.
The Student Projects at Cornell University are based on Atmel microcontrollers, but the design descriptions are so detailed and varied that I included them in the list of general resources. This site gives a very good overview of the kinds of interesting things you can make your microcontroller do.
AVR
You will find a great collection of neatly categorized resources at AVR Freaks. Look at the article called "The Newbie's Guide to AVR Development" for a good primer for working with the AVR family. The AVR articles can be found here. Free registration required.
PIC
The projects at the PIC List give a good sampling of the design possibilities with the PIC family.
The PICmicro Web Ring has 100 plus individual websites on PIC development.
