7 Dec
2008
7 Dec
'08
3:47 p.m.
On 7 Dec 2008 at 23:29, Gordon JC Pearce MM3YEQ wrote:
Eh, there's not a lot of difference. The AVR's more orthogonal in
use of registers than the PIC (which seems to run almost everything
through W), but the AVR's got its own peculiarities.
I'm just starting with the TI MSP430 and I like it a lot. Von
Neumann archicture, instead of Harvard. 16 general-purpose registers
with a simple 2-address instruction set that operates on words or
bytes. R0 is PC, R1 is SP, R2 is status. Indexed and autoincrement
addressing modes are available. If you're used to traditional
architectures, this one's very easy to learn. But it's got its
drawbacks also--upper-level AVRs allow for external memory, but the
430 seems to be architecturally limited to no more than 10K of RAM
and 60K of program ROM, which should be sufficient for most tasks.
Very low power 3.3v operation; not available in 5v versions.
Cheers,
Chuck
Jules, I
work developing hardware for a living, and I'll tell you
something: If you are used to Z80, you'll have a hard time using a PIC.
But an AVR will be easy to you to swallow.
The PIC is one I always found interesting, in that it's generally easier
to program in assembler than C...