[sdiy] Beginner questions

[patchell]

    Hi Oliver...

Oliver Keller wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>
> Is there any FAQ out there or some tutorials that give a computer guy
> some ideas about the electronic side of this ? I´ve seen that there are
> some machines based on PICs, others on VARs, other on 68xxx, but I don´t
> know why to prefer this or that way.
>

    What you pick depends a lot on how much do you want to spend...I personally
like the AVR, but I also use the 68000, since I happen to have a C++ compiler for
that (purchased it for a consulting job I did several years ago, would never be
able to afford one now).  There are a couple of nice C compilers for the AVR that
are inexpensive and quite good.  The reason I did not choose the PIC was I did not
like the instruction set.  This is more a matter of personal taste, so taking a
good look at the instruction set may be important.  Although, so far, I have not
needed to write any assembly code for the AVR...

>
> Would this list be a good point to ask about sequencing stuff as well ?
>
> I´m sure I´ll nag you soon with lots of questions :-) but if you like to join,
> I´d be happy to discuss design and functions, by this getting a very
> precise picture of what to build. However, turning the idea into a working
> machine is another story. I guess the best way would be to take some time
> for the project definition , and use this time to do my first steps with
> practical engineering (simple devices) to learn the basics in parallel. Are
> there any DIY projects you can recommend for that purpose ?
>
> I´d like to build a MIDIcox, but without source code I can´t learn the
> things I need to know... I took a look at Jazz++ and this may be a
> foundation to build on, but then it´s not uC any more, alas.
>

    In case you haven't seen it, here is the code I wrote for one of my projects:

http://www.silcom.com/~patchell/smb1/midi.pdf


and the project is here:

http://www.silcom.com/~patchell/smb1/smb.html

    I don't know if either of these will help you any.

>
> Anyway, before this is turning into a novel, I´ll come to an end and save
> some thoughts for the next post....  so see you later,
>
> Oliver

--
 -Jim
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