[sdiy] how you got started with your current µC? (was: Re: Most common ICs)

[Thomas Strathmann]

On 19/09/15 23:46, Michael Zacherl wrote:
> did you people start with a typical dev-board of PIC/AVR/STM32/... ?

Yes and no. I started on 8-bit AVR with a custom dev board that some 
local folks had done. They provided the PCB and some documentation and 
you provided the rest. I remember helping get a toolchain running on 
GNU/Linux which included porting the software for the boad's more or 
less proprietary (in terms of pin-layout) parallel port programmer from 
DOS to Linux. Today I use much the same toolchain (avr-gcc) on Mac OS X 
with a stock USB programmer. Before the AVR I had some experience with a 
small dev board for the 68HC11 that I had bought fully assembled from a 
web shop. I still have a STM32F4 Discovery board in a drawer which I 
only used in so far as I bothered to get the complete toolchain running 
on Mac OS X and writing a small test program to exercise the on-board 
DAC. Never used a PIC in my life so far. Probably because when I got 
into microcontrollers AVRs where still the new kids on the block and I 
prefer C over plain assembly. BTW, how is the situation of using C on 
PICs (or dsPICs for that matter)?

	Thomas