TI MSP430

SMS wrote:
>
> Systems Conference in San Jose. You can buy the development tool (USB
> stick) for 1/2 price ($10), with the coupon code MS681LXD.

Hey, now THAT is a useful posting! :) I just ordered three, and
forwarded the information around at work. Would be nice to set up a
lunch-and-learn seminar and hand out these sticks.

On 6 Apr 2006 05:02:49 -0700, "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:

>SMS wrote:
>>
>> Systems Conference in San Jose. You can buy the development tool (USB
>> stick) for 1/2 price ($10), with the coupon code MS681LXD.
>
>Hey, now THAT is a useful posting! :) I just ordered three, and
>forwarded the information around at work. Would be nice to set up a
>lunch-and-learn seminar and hand out these sticks.

I also ordered a handful.  I'll be using them with local high school
children to encourage any interests they may have.  If only one child
gets more serious, the modest expense will have been worthwhile.

Jon

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
> On 6 Apr 2006 05:02:49 -0700, "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> SMS wrote:
>>> Systems Conference in San Jose. You can buy the development tool (USB
>>> stick) for 1/2 price ($10), with the coupon code MS681LXD.
>> Hey, now THAT is a useful posting! :) I just ordered three, and
>> forwarded the information around at work. Would be nice to set up a
>> lunch-and-learn seminar and hand out these sticks.
> 
> I also ordered a handful.  I'll be using them with local high school
> children to encourage any interests they may have.  If only one child
> gets more serious, the modest expense will have been worthwhile.

Yeah, someone recruited me last night to do a presentation on 
"enrichment day" at my son's school. I'm thinking to do something on 
embedded computers with the TI MSP430 if they come in time. The kids 
love anything with electronics and technology.

I need to think of an interesting application to do with these.

TI is pretty smart to make the development kit available at such a low 
price, and to package it the way they did.

On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:09:30 -0700, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote:

>Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>> On 6 Apr 2006 05:02:49 -0700, "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> SMS wrote:
>>>> Systems Conference in San Jose. You can buy the development tool (USB
>>>> stick) for 1/2 price ($10), with the coupon code MS681LXD.
>>> Hey, now THAT is a useful posting! :) I just ordered three, and
>>> forwarded the information around at work. Would be nice to set up a
>>> lunch-and-learn seminar and hand out these sticks.
>> 
>> I also ordered a handful.  I'll be using them with local high school
>> children to encourage any interests they may have.  If only one child
>> gets more serious, the modest expense will have been worthwhile.
>
>Yeah, someone recruited me last night to do a presentation on 
>"enrichment day" at my son's school. I'm thinking to do something on 
>embedded computers with the TI MSP430 if they come in time. The kids 
>love anything with electronics and technology.

Yes, but lots of extra sparks and fire does help.  ;)

>I need to think of an interesting application to do with these.

If you come up with something nifty, let us know.  Right now, what I
see is a unit that is relatively difficult to open without breaking
the little pins (something I'll need to have them practice on, if they
are going to consider doing more than blinking an led.)  Also,
everything is very tiny and appears "too sophisticated and daunting"
to a child of that age.  So I'd like to come up with something to help
make this go beyond just being a canned toy that is treated as
something that cannot be touched inside and therefore an experience
that never gets expanded upon.

Of course, I also noted that you earlier wrote:

>   I can think of a lot of applications for a chip like this.

So I'm depending on you!!  hehe.  :)

>TI is pretty smart to make the development kit available at such a low 
>price, and to package it the way they did.

US$9.99 each for a USB thingy like this is darned decent!  Plus
shipping, of course.

Jon

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

> If you come up with something nifty, let us know.  Right now, what I
> see is a unit that is relatively difficult to open without breaking
> the little pins (something I'll need to have them practice on, if they
> are going to consider doing more than blinking an led.)  Also,
> everything is very tiny and appears "too sophisticated and daunting"
> to a child of that age.  So I'd like to come up with something to help
> make this go beyond just being a canned toy that is treated as
> something that cannot be touched inside and therefore an experience
> that never gets expanded upon.

I would break-out the pins to a breadboard or screw-terminals, or even 
those little spring connectors that come on the 150 in one electronic 
kits, and not let them connect directly to the little pins.

I need something involving some buttons and switches of course. 
Something involving sparks and sounds would definitely be good.

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

> Put yourself on the wait list.  They will probably open up a new
> session if enough do that (and they probably will -- it happened here
> that way here in Portland, Oregon.)

They just opened up a second session in San Jose for May 25th.

On Thursday, in article
     <443575eb$0$70842$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>
     scharf.steven@geemail.com "SMS" wrote:

>Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>
>> If you come up with something nifty, let us know.  Right now, what I
>> see is a unit that is relatively difficult to open without breaking
>> the little pins (something I'll need to have them practice on, if they
>> are going to consider doing more than blinking an led.)  Also,
>> everything is very tiny and appears "too sophisticated and daunting"
>> to a child of that age.  So I'd like to come up with something to help
>> make this go beyond just being a canned toy that is treated as
>> something that cannot be touched inside and therefore an experience
>> that never gets expanded upon.
>
>I would break-out the pins to a breadboard or screw-terminals, or even 
>those little spring connectors that come on the 150 in one electronic 
>kits, and not let them connect directly to the little pins.
>
>I need something involving some buttons and switches of course. 
>Something involving sparks and sounds would definitely be good.

Well obvious thing that springs to mind is upto 8 leds with varying pattern
and speed controlled by switches and/or pots.

Sound use PWM to drive an audio stage with pots to control frequency,
duty cycle and perhaps some software frequency modulation of master frequency.
Look at basic synthesiser blocks and pwm (software/hardware) of these
frequencies and affecting each other with sweep functions, will make all
sorts of intersting variable sound effects.

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

Gary Reichlinger wrote:

> and low cost development tools.  Like most companies, we have a lot of
> software written for other microcontrollers, but we will certainly
> look at TI for new designs.   www.ti.com/ez430

By the way, I forgot to mention in response to this posting: The main
downside to the MSP430 is price. Currently it's pretty much the leader
in low-power applications (except maybe for the MaxQ from Maxim; if
you're looking at low-power architectures look at that one before you
commit...). The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to
as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part.

larwe wrote:

> Gary Reichlinger wrote:
> 
> 
>>and low cost development tools.  Like most companies, we have a lot of
>>software written for other microcontrollers, but we will certainly
>>look at TI for new designs.   www.ti.com/ez430
> 
> 
> By the way, I forgot to mention in response to this posting: The main
> downside to the MSP430 is price. Currently it's pretty much the leader
> in low-power applications (except maybe for the MaxQ from Maxim; if
> you're looking at low-power architectures look at that one before you
> commit...). 

On the MAXQ, watch out for the high Core-On Icc, eg one spec's
5mA @ 20MHz, and inside the data shows > 4mA at a couple of MHz.
- so that does NOT clock scale well.

Another recent low power CPU, that includes a micro power regulator and
has 5V capable IO, is the C8051F410 from Silabs.
The regulator avoids the Icc hike at higher voltage that is an
issue with direct battery operation in most cores.


> The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to
> as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part.

In what volumes ?

-jg

Jim Granville wrote:

> On the MAXQ, watch out for the high Core-On Icc, eg one spec's

Interesting. I never looked closely at this part because frankly we've
got enough devices in our stable and don't want to start learning a new
one... :)

> > The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to
> > as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part.
> 
> In what volumes ?

30~50K annually.