microcontrollers in the classroom

[thomas56]

I am a teacher of electronics at a community college and I am looking for a microcontroller to use as the heart of our program. I have looked at Intel, Motorola, and the PIC so far. In your opinions, which would make the best platform.

Thomas56

 

[Lewish]

I would suggest you take a look at Atmel. You can get emulation boards from Digi-key for $99.00. This gives you something to test your developed code on. All of the basic software tools are available for free on the Atmel website. I have heard that they have discount programs available for educators, so you may be able to get a better deal for your students on the EVM. There are at least a dozen companies in my area using Atmel microprocessors. Thus, there is a real need from programmers, even in these slow times.

 

[thomas56]

Which Atmel platform would you recomend? They have an 8051 knock-off and a RISC platform.

 

[nbucska]

I would use some 8 bit microcontroller e.g. Z80 which
has simpler addressing than the 8051-s but less instructions than the ?86 . <nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[nbucska]

LEWISH:

What is EVM ? Do you know what kind of free software do they
have ? <nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[Lewish]

thomas56, the companies I know, that are using Atmel micros, are using the AVR type. There is such a big selection here, and they are all readily available. I currently use the AT90S8515 and the ATmega103.

nbucska, an EVM is an EValuation Module. It allows you to develop code, compile that code on your PC and download it to the EVM via serial communications. You can then add real world &quot;stuff&quot; around the EVM to test your concepts.
As to what software, what are you looking for? They have everything you need to compile your code and load it on the micro.

 

[xnuke]

I learned on an Intel 8051, and subsequently taught the Motorola MC68HC11A1. I thought both were fine for learning the basics.

 

[melone]

I agree with xnuke!

 

[Lewish]

To xnuke and melone,
While what you say is good advice, how many companies do you know of today who are starting new designs using either of these 2 micros? And, can you use ANSI C to program either of these? No! Because neither of them have a hardware stack.

Just my $0.02 worth.

 

[xnuke]

Lewish,
Keep in mind this is for a community college electronics class. The students learning this stuff probably don't need more than the basics, such as internal structure, basics of assembly language programming, typical fetch-execute cycle, interfacing with memory and I/O, etc. Once the basics of one microcontroller are learned, it's not too difficult to learn others.

Besides, you never know where these are going to pop up. I work as a facilities controls engineer and see old microcontrollers all the time in legacy equipment that I am responsible for and my technicians have to maintain.

 

[nbucska]

Lewish:
You can get several C compilers for both the 68HC11 and
the 8051 and derivatives.

A lot of companies are using them even for new design.
There was life before WINDOWS, too, and there will be
after it is gone... <nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[melone]

The 8051 and HC11 are used as the cores for many automotive applications.

 

[Lewish]

nbucska, Don't ever accuse me of being a Windows advocate!

Linux will eventually rule.

 

[Lewish]

xnuke and melone, good points to consider. I grew up with an 8008 and then an 8080. I still occasionally see Z80s in use.

 

[carnage]

I know it is not very used but I learned on an intel 8085 it was a three chip set that was upgraded and combined into one package to become the 8086. The really cool thing about it was that you could look at the signals that would never make it out to the buss which gave a much clearer understanding of how processers work internally.
p.s. anyone know how to get ahold of the intel 4004 chip my old prof still wants one to complete his collection.

 

[RomanM]

What about the PIC 16f877 or 16f873 (

http://www.microchip.com)?

These are very durable, low cost, free assembler/development software, flash ROM with thousands of read writes, ISP, UART, A/D, I2C, 3 Timers, 20+ i/o's(capable of driving LED's), PWM... you can get a programmer for $110 at

http://www.dontronics.com/newfound.html

I'm not a PIC salesperson , but it may be worth checking them out.

 

[designchain]

I'd recommend a relatively straightforward microcontroller like the 8051 or one of the simpler PICs, without all the A/D and multiple I/O protocol bells and whistles (like the 16F877 has - I designed a system around it when it first came out; great part). The point of an introductory class like thomas56 is giving is usually to learn how a computer operates. Therefore, there's little value in a higher level language like C. Programming in assembly language (and, maybe for the first project, hand-assembling a simple program in to machine code) is critical to truly understanding how these things work and what their capabilities, and limitations, are. Programming in C would tend to hide lots of that.

Also, FYI carnage, the 8085 was not &quot;a three chip set that was upgraded and combined into one package to become the 8086&quot;. It was an 8-bit processor (with a nice, simple instruction set and simple memory structure). The 8086 was a completely different architecture, base on a different 16 bit instruction set that was not compatible with the 8085.

 

[gjones33]

Hi all,

For what its worth, as an educator I chose the 8-bit PIC family I received excellent support from Microchip and with only 35 instructions to learn it was easy to teach. PIC microcontrollers are also well supported in hobby magazines and there are plenty of resources for students to help themselves.

Cheers,
G

 

[carnage]

so I guess an extra 8 bits is more than an &quot;upgrade&quot;, but the instruction set was quite similar (conceptually) to the 8086, not enough to be compatible though.

 

[Rockjoint]

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Rockjoint
rockjoint@yahoo.com