which low price develop tools have C compiler?

I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
develop board w/ C compiler.

Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

"yong" <yqin_99@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:be3c7875.0404070432.634bd8d6@posting.google.com...
> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
> develop board w/ C compiler.
>
> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

Olimex has low-cost development boards for some of the MSP430 family and the
LPC2106. Both are supported by free GNU tools.

http://www.olimex.com


Leon

On 7 Apr 2004 05:32:37 -0700, yqin_99@yahoo.com (yong) wrote:

>I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
>develop board w/ C compiler.
>
>Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

You have many options.  Probably all those you mention, plus Motorola
MC68HC908, x86 and others.

My personal favorite would probably be the Atmel AVR.  The STK500 is
about US$80 from Digikey, and handles most variations of the family.

It doesn't include a C compiler AFAIK, but avr-gcc is free and does an
excellent job, and WinAVR makes it easy under Windoze.  If GCC is too
scary, CodeVisionAVR has a free evaluation version, and only costs
US$75 for the light version or US$150 for the full version.

Good support and more info at www.avrfreaks.com.

HTH,

                               -=Dave
-- 
Change is inevitable, progress is not.

I like the eZ8 boards from Zilog. I believe they are under $50 and come with a
C compiler. The board I got (the first one they came out with) has plenty of
devices on the board so you can play around with buttons, LEDs, I2C, and SPI.
It connects to your PC and allows you to single step and set breakpoints and
all that.

> My personal favorite would probably be the Atmel AVR.  The STK500 is
> about US$80 from Digikey, and handles most variations of the family.

One other plus about the STK500 - It works with legacy-free machines
via a USB-to-serial adapter.

yqin_99@yahoo.com (yong) wrote in message news:<be3c7875.0404070432.634bd8d6@posting.google.com>...
> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
> develop board w/ C compiler.
> 
> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

www.imaginetools.com

yong wrote:
> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
> develop board w/ C compiler.
>
> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

The thing missing from the preceding suggestions is a means of debugging the
program.  I believe that all the kits suggested require programming the code
into a target processor and running with no means of testing.

I would use PIC16F877 processor with ICD1 in-circuit debugger clone ($35) or
ICD2 clone ($90) and a PIC-P40B prototype board ($13) (www.olimex.com).

For software development environment use MPLAB 5.40 (with ICD1 - note V5.70
does not work with ICD1 correctly) or V6.5 with ICD2.  This allows source
code debugging in assembler or C.

Free limited code size compilers available from http://www.htsoft.com/ (PIC
C lite) or www.bknd.com (CC5X).

yong wrote:
> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
> develop board w/ C compiler.
> 
> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

Yong,
      I would vote for the Zilog Encore kit, $40 US.  Comes 
with compiler, debugger, enough documentation to keep you 
busy for some time, and the processor as just about any 
peripherial you may need.  For more info, see the Encore 
page from Digikey.
http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?KeywordSearch
      Hope this helps you out.

Dennis,
-- 
If sending a reply you will need to remove "7UP".

D. Zimmerman wrote:

> yong wrote:
> 
>> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
>> develop board w/ C compiler.
>>
>> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...
> 
> 
> Yong,
>      I would vote for the Zilog Encore kit, $40 US.  Comes with 
> compiler, debugger, enough documentation to keep you busy for some time, 
> and the processor as just about any peripherial you may need.  For more 
> info, see the Encore page from Digikey.
> http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?KeywordSearch
>      Hope this helps you out.
> 
> Dennis,

      I see there was an error with the link.  The Digikey 
part number is 269-3249-ND .

Dennis,

-- 
If sending a reply you will need to remove "7UP".

yong wrote:
> I want to learn microcontroller. I want to get low price (<$100)
> develop board w/ C compiler.
> 
> Recommendation? 8051? MSP430? Z8? LPC21xx? ...

  If you want to learn, then 'all from one vendor' would appeal.
Look at the new Zilog Z8 Encore XP family, just being ramped.
  Of the significant players, only Zilog and Motorola have Compiler
tools 'in house' via companies they bought.
  Zilog are the most eager to grow market share, so have very good
packages.
  Also important are On Chip DEBUG features, and Zilog appear to
have this, right down to the sub $1 devices.

  Another choice is Cygnal: They have very good on chip debug, and high 
performance tiny packages, that are great for volume manufacturing.
  They also use the most widely sourced uC core on the planet.

  Avoid cores that are too crippled...
-jg