Confused about AVR

[ELMBONSAI]

I recently became interested in Atmel's line of microcontrollers, i purchased
"programming and customizing the AVR microcontroller."
i could have found the same info on the Atmel website.
Does anybody know of any "decent" books or websites on the AVR subject?
any info would be greatly appreciated;
or should i just go with the trend and get into PIC's instead

[bodgy]

Goto www.msc.com the makers of the MSC compiler for AVR's - they have a page full of peoples projects with varying degrees of difficulty.<p>Also there is the AVR webring (search on google), and I have just done some searches at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Dillons(UK Amazon), all have come up with various books on the AVR.<p>Befeore anyone thinks the first link is an advert, I must point out that I'm a PIC user myself and occasionally use the 8051 derivertives.<p>bodgy<p>[ July 05, 2002: Message edited by: bodgy ]</p>

[bobsRAC]

Three years ago, I started out an asembly PIC user. I re-created many of the basic starter programs from simple counters that drive 7-segment displays to dtmf modulation and so forth. I built simple interface protocols utilizing sci, spi, and parallel interfaces, constructed sensor sampling and display circuits, and bit-banged NTSC video.<p>When I wanted to start learning about other processors and development languages, I researched what was being used in the professional world. I found that PICs are used plenty, and that AVRs are gaining popularity. I bought the AVR devel kit (STK500) and wrote a few SCI-to-SPI and buffered I/O projects in assembly (to familiarize myself with the architecture). I found that the AVRs are more powerful for many interface applications, and function well in DSP-like applications for a non-DSP processor.<p>In the past year I have gotten into a work environment in which development tools can be bought, tested, and set on the shelf if they don't work. Because of my experience with PICs as well as a colleague of my professor, we invested several thousand dollars in PIC devel tools, including CCSs (www.ccsinfo.com) PICC ($100 C-compiler) and Microchip ICD (for use with PIC16f87x). We have since found PIC development to be hobbyist oriented, as well as somewhat unstable.<p>Most development now has moved over to TI's (www.ti.com) TMSLF24x line of DSPs. This environment is much too expensive for the hobbyist and tends to inflate the cost of projects around the lab. I have suggested the AVRs as a viable alternative and we have purchased development kits and chips, as well as set up the AVR-GCC (more on that here http://www.enteract.com/~rneswold/avr/) devel environment. We haven't put out any new proposal since we set up the AVR environment, but are moving in their direction for low-cost projects.<p>If you're interested in low-cost assembly development, either the PICs or the AVRs are a good choice. The PICs may have less of a learning curve b/c of their small instruction set (35), whereas the AVRs may be more capable in complex tasks.<p>If you want to move up to C-based development, the AVRs show no increase in cost (thanks to the GNU compiler), whereas the PICs require a $100 -> $900 compiler.<p>Also, if you're interested in Java (I love the stuff), the JStamp from Systronix is a very capable, very easy-to-learn native Java embedded solution. The JStamp has two Java Virtual Machines (JVMs), 512KB sram, 512KB or 2MB FLASH, dual UARTS, JTAG, 74MHz, $100-$150. Systronix is also just releasing the JStik which runs a little faster, and has on-board ethernet, as well as some other goodies. We are using these in a current project.

[scottm]

For good things AVR check out
www.avrfreaks.net

Cheers!
Scott