[sdiy] Microcontrollers, development environments and hardware programmer recommendations.

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

Manufacturers make it very easy for you to get started. I have a MacBook with Windows and OSX installed so that I can boot either one, as needed. These days, most evaluation boards double as a hardware programmer.

I still use PIC for some projects, but I always start by looking at the requirements before selecting a processor. As a result, I've used many different chips, and they're all fairly easy to get started in developing.

Lately I've been choosing Texas Instruments for the bulk of the designs. They have the TMS320 DSP family, the TM4C Stellaris ARM family, and several hybrid or multi-core combinations. A lot of the TI LaunchPad evaluation modules are actually built on a PCB that can be broken in half to separate the hardware programmer from the target processor. Some of these LaunchPads are only $5 and include the programmer. Hard to beat that price. More expensive models have audio inputs and outputs.

Brian


On Oct 22, 2016, at 5:54 AM, Ben Riggs <benalog1977 at gmail.com> wrote:
> It’s been at least a 10 year hiatus in which i’ve given away/lost my hardware/software capability to program micro controllers, of which i’m sure are redundant anyways. but now i’ve got some project ideas that i would like to implement and i’m not sure how to go about getting the capability back. In the past i used PIC12 PIC16 & PIC18 micro controllers, so it would be handy to stick with the PIC platform because thats where i’m experienced, but i’m open to other platform recommendations if more suitable.
> 
> I started to look but became quickly overwhelmed.
> 
> what I’m looking for as far as recommendations go is based on:
> 1. I travel a lot (8 months of the year living out of a suitcase/ working out of a pelican toolbox) and travel with a current model MacBook (with the single USB-C port). I noticed that MPLAB IDE X runs on mac which is good. what other development environments do?
> 2. a hardware programmer, portability is key. USB and port powered preferable.
> 3. are PICs old tech now? is it better to move on and learn something new? what are the options?
> 
> any input and recommendations are appreciated.
>