[sdiy] WHICH PIC/UCONTROLLER should I buy today

[Ben Stuyts]

Hi Michael,

On 10 aug 2010, at 02:12, Michael Zacherl. wrote:

>    I'm in a somewhat similar situation but didn't look at the Arm-series.
> 
> I'm not that much into µC-programming (last time was with 8085, 6502 and Z80  ;-) 
> How would you compare the three platforms (PIC, AVR, Arm) in terms of effort and complexity vs. leraning curve?
> I favoured Arduino/AVR so far but following Tom's projects also made me curious about PICs.
> And now your pointer to Arm-7.  ;-)

Yeah, to many options really. I'm also from a 6502 background by the way. Nowadays I mostly develop in 68k, 8051, AVR and ARM-7. For new projects I only look at ARM-7 now, because the range is so enormously extensive. Price-wise, you van get them from .50 euro and up, so there is really no reason (for me) anymore to use 8-bit cpu's. For another project I'm using an NXP LPC1111. It is only .75 euro for a 32-bit cpu with 8 K flash, 2 K ram. It beats even the 8051-derivative it is replacing.

Back to sdiy, the one thing I really want to experiment with now is something to do CV generation/manipulation (free envelope generator, quantization, sequencer), and that was the reason that I wanted 12-bit (or better) A/D and D/A. I could use external chips for that, but was pleasantly surprised that there are actual chips now which have this on-board.

I also got the Symphony Soundbite kit that Terry mentioned a while ago. DSP optimized for audio. Very interesting, definitely, but I haven't really done anything useful with it yet.

Kind regards,
Ben