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Elektor Embedded & Microcontrollers blog vanaf heden on-line.

Elektor is een blog gestart op blogspot.com voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in Embedded systemen en microcontrollers. Om het geheel zo internationaal mogelijk te houden, is de blog opgezet in het Engels, de gebruikelijke voertaal op internet. Hieronder de aankondiging.

Why did you PIC an AVR for your project?

Microcontrollers are popular components. We publish a lot of circuits in Elektor that implement a microcontroller. Most of the time the microcontroller used is either some PIC from Microchip or an AVR from Atmel, although we do see the occasional odd one like an MSP430 from TI or an HC12 from Freescale. Now it is true that Microchip and Atmel were the first to start with cheap and small microcontrollers, supported by cheap tools, so it is understandable that they have grown a large user base, but other manufacturers have entered the scene since. A free GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) tool chain exists for MSP430 (mspgcc), if you search well enough you can find something similar for the HC(S)12, and most manufacturers offer free tools (although often the size of the executable is limited) and cheap evaluation boards. The free compiler SDCC targets the 8051, available from almost every chip maker, but also other processors like those from Maxim.

Every day new people are getting into microcontrollers (or should we say “embedded”?) and they have to choose their platform. Their choice is very probably influenced by the information and examples they can find on the internet that are directly relevant for their project. Once a platform is chosen, people tend to stick to it. Yet there are people who do more than just stick to their platform, they become aficionados of the microcontroller family they chose and they will use it for everything.

This led us at Elektor to the question: are you particularly fond of a certain microcontroller? If you are, can you explain why? Are you a PIC lover or an AVR adept? Or are there any particular reasons for you not to use a certain microcontroller? Please let us know!

Send your response to elektorembeddedatgmaildotcom or post it on our new blog elektorembedded.blogspot.com dedicated to microcontrollers and embedded systems.