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

 

[Chancy99]

Personally I really like the Atmel AVR line of micros. Nice and simple, no ancient memory paging like the PIC. Fast and powerful - 1 instruction per clock mostly - with a wide range of parts, from the mongo ATMega128 down to the itty bitty AT90S2323.

Check these sites out :

Nice AVR course - lots of project info

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/

Where they all come from ...

http://www.atmel.com

Premier support site

http://www.avrfreaks.net

Dean.

 

[thomas56]

I'd like to thank everyone for their input. I have decided to go with the Atmel AVR series of uCs. their university program has set me up with an ICE micro lab. They're a first class operation. They even have a uC that will easily accomplish VFD applications. Thanks again to all you bit heads. My students are chomping at the bit. It's amazing how creative young people get when they get hold of some good toys.