16 Apr
2012
16 Apr
'12
5:20 p.m.
On 16 Apr 2012 at 19:47, someone wrote:
One can "graduate" from the Arduino
software platform and start
programming the microcontroller directly, or one can use the
Arduino software platform on a scratch-built board, just as easily.
Basically someone can "graduate" into more advanced hardware OR
more advanced software whenever they feel comfortable, and do the
other later.
The Arduino is useful to many because it's assembled (correctly),
comes with a development suite and lots of sample projects. While
this may not be important to everyone, it's important to many.
One is not constrained to using the "official" Arduino tools. Want
to program the AVR in assembly or FORTH? No problem.
My particular use was doing some evaluation on a 32-bit Arduino
"clone"--the Digilent Uno32. For about $28, I got a little board
with a smallish PIC32, (PIC32MX320F128H) some LEDs headers and a FTDI
USB-to-serial chip (the USB capabilities of the PIC32 are left
uncommitted).
I downloaded the Uno32 devkit to make sure that my kit worked and
then used the official MPLAB suite from Microchip and a PicKit3 to do
my device programming. It worked just fine and got me up to speed on
the chip without bothering about the detals of the Arduino emulation.
Worth every cent, particularly when compared to Micrchip PIC32 dev
boards. After I felt comfortable, I graduated to my own designs
using bigger PIC32s.
--Chuck