recommendation of microcontroller please

Ulf Samuelsson wrote:

>>>With the AVR, you need (want) the following tools.
>>>
>>>1) gcc C compiler  - or IAR. Some like Imagecraft.
>>>2) AVR Studio
>>>3) STK500 development board
>>>4) JTAG-ICE Mk II.
>>>
>>>If you want a real cheap environment, then you can try out the AVR Dragon
>>>which is a low cost, low featur combination of STK500 + JTAGICE Mk II
>>>but only works for chips with 32 kB flash or less.
>>
>> Can you clarify "only works for chips with 32 kB flash or less" ?
> 
> 
> The AVR Dragon is a JTAG emulator combined with an application area.
> It is just a PCB not mounted in plastic.
> You probably want to solder a socket of some kind in the application area.
> The part downloads the code into a SRAM which is limited to 32 kB.

Now I am more confused. Code-Sram ?
The FLASH AVR's cannot execute code from SRAM ?
- or is that some temp storage ? Why does it need SRAM ?

It DOES use the real silicon for emulation, right ?


> 
> 
>>- so that means the JTAG-ICE Mk II therein, is not going to also work with 
>>an AVR32, for example ? Then what - you buy another JTAG-ICE Mk II ?  How 
>>do you then tell them appart ?
> 
> 
> I think you have misunderstood something
> Look up AVR Dragon on the Atmel website.
> 
> I dont think you want to use the AVR Dragon as an emulator for the AVR32.

Yes, I did - I took "is a low cost, low feature combination of STK500 + 
JTAGICE Mk II" rather too literally.

I thought you meant it included a JTAGICE Mk II, but I can see
when looking at a photo, it is quite a different animal.
Rather than follow others lead with USB-Stik debug, where the Stick is
generally usefull for wider debug, Atmel have done this a little 
differently.

Better/smarter  would have been a compact, low cost USB link that could 
be used on ALL Atmel products, and AVR daughter cards, for programming, 
debug, and production.

Web info is currently very sparse.

-jg

On Nov 21, 12:27 am, Anton Erasmus <nob...@spam.prevent.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:13:28 -0800 (PST), steve
>
> <bungalow_st...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Nov 20, 6:01 am, "johnstokes30" <johnstoke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> hi
> >> i am new here.  i would like to learn embedded programming on a very well
> >> established microcontoller.  I know that PICs are becoming more popular
> >> but can someone tell me of a controller that is popular in industry for
> >> several years (8 or 16 bit) and also has products available that i can use
> >> to learn such as demo kits. motorola 68XX? Atmel? 8051?
>
> >> many thanks
> >> john
>
> >I would suggest a 32 bit ARM, for $20 you can be up and running with a
> >C complier and eval board in a few hours (Analog devices in my case)
>
> Getting interrupts going, especially nested interrupts, is not easy on
> an ARM for a newbie.

just use the examples given as templates, newbies don't (shouldn't)
have to write anything from scratch