Is anyone else having fun with their STK500 development board and AVRs beside Salgat and me?hgmjr

I've used STK500 for along time and been very happy with it. Last years also AVRISP mkII have been my friend. STK500 is still good too have if someone program a fuse too lock the MCU. In that case a parallell programmer is needed to lockup the MCU. It never happens to me but my friends need assistence from time to time.

AVR mcu's also has a basic compiler. BASCOM is free up too a certain code size. Its excellent, but I recommend using asm or GCC.

 

You can download a full-featured version of Swordfish for free. The only limitation appears to be the amount of RAM it lets you allocate. The full-feature version with no limitations at all is approximately $160 USD.

hgmjr

SourceBoost has "Ended The Wars" so to speak by putting out C, C++, and BASIC Compilers for both PIC and AVR. The syntax is the same, and other uC specific items are similar. It is a free download for limited, and for $50, you have something as good as (to me) the CCS Multi-Hundred dollar compiler.

With "Which software" out of the way, putting PIC and AVR against each other at a device level, it is pretty much a wash. AVR might cost a little more, but it is simpler to do some things. Both can do about everything, except onboard Full Speed USB and other advanced peripherals. However, those are available as separate IC's which can be connected via SPI.

In Summation, Two Years later, I will say that "Today, Either One is Fine", though I prefer PIC, I've worked with both, and liked some things about AVR. For most applications a hobbyist will do, using a high level language, it really Does Not Matter if it is a PIC or an AVR.

As long as it is a "System On A Chip" uC, and not a bus driven processor like the 8051 or the failed PIC 17xxx series which needed external memory.

 

Both can do about everything, except onboard Full Speed USB

AVRs do Full Speed USB and even USB On-the-Go
Atmel AVRs Full Speed Devices

 

AVRs do Full Speed USB and even USB On-the-Go
Atmel AVRs Full Speed Devices

So does PIC32 with USB OTG.....

 

So does PIC32 with USB OTG.....

If you include that as a "PIC" then you have to consider other 32-bit devices. Those other 32-bit devices support High Speed USB.

 

If you include that as a "PIC" then you have to consider other 32-bit devices. Those other 32-bit devices support High Speed USB.

so why didn't you mention them, I was just saying Pic has USB OTG just like you said AVR does.... So what's your point again??

 

so why didn't you mention them, I was just saying Pic has USB OTG just like you said AVR does.... So what's your point again??

I was trying to say that a "PIC vs AVR" discussion usually refers to Atmel's and Microchip's 8/16 bit devices. AVR has an 8-bit microcontroller with FS USB OTG. I was not trying to imply that Microchip doesn't produce a USB OTG device. If you bring Microchip's 32-bit PIC32 into the discussion then you are talking about a different class of device. As far as other devices go there are the STM32, AVR32, ARM-based micros which all have HS USB OTG.

 

My dad can beat up your dad.

 

See: http://www.eevblog.com/2009/11/