Hardware Programming

[CraZee]

Huh? I built a kit programmer board years ago and that was not the case. Most expensive part of the kit was the zif socket. Someone is still using it to this day.

Was this a serial or USB programmer?

[spiderz]

It wont really, as far as I know, the GPIO's dont have much function yet. Rather get an Arduino, or I have an STM32 Discovery board . Its slightly harder (using C to program), but its quite nice

on the raspberry you can use the GPIO pins. They busy with a Gerdboard to make that easier. Can also plug some sort of camera straight into it.

Start with the Arduino, cheaper and more friendly to start with. And once you start building your own devices you can use only the chip + a few components.

http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/proces...-kits/7154081/
http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/proces...-kits/7589339/

[Sysem]

on the raspberry you can use the GPIO pins. They busy with a Gerdboard to make that easier. Can also plug some sort of camera straight into it.

Start with the Arduino, cheaper and more friendly to start with. And once you start building your own devices you can use only the chip + a few components.

http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/proces...-kits/7154081/
http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/proces...-kits/7589339/

Ah thought the functionality was limited! How is the interfacing with the pins? Easier than general microcontrollers?

[spiderz]

http://elinux.org/RPi_Low-level_peripherals
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cont...berry-Pi-GPIO/
http://quick2wire.com/2012/05/safe-c...-raspberry-pi/

I havent played with it yet ... still busy with the arduino ...

[GarethC]

One nice thing with an Arduino, is that if you decide to move on to just using a standalone microcontroller, you can use the arduino to program other Atmel microcontrollers.

Mike sczsy of Hackaday did a nice short series on learning to program with the Atmel AVR series of microcontrollers.

[Faultyboy]

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11306

[DevSign]

does anyone know where I can get a free IDE with a compiler for the C Language?

[GarethC]

For a microcontroller, or just programming windows applications?

[DevSign]

For a micro controller.

[Messugga]

For a micro controller.

Notepad++ for dev'ing. There are specific compilers for the various different brands of MCU though. Atmel has AVR Studio, which is a pretty comprehensive, free IDE. For PIC I've always used Mikrotik, but it's not free.

[GarethC]

For a micro controller.

Which microcontroller? Most microcontrollers (that I have worked with) have their own IDEs to aid programming their controllers. These generally have all the libraries pre-installed. In general these can be downloaded for free.

Although technically, I guess as long as you have the libraries loaded correctly, you can use any C ide?

[DevSign]

I have no idea for which, it's just a hobby I want to get started...

[CraZee]

Use MPLAB for PIC micros. Tons of documentation and easy to use
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/id...&part=SW007002

[GarethC]

I have no idea for which, it's just a hobby I want to get started...

If you're just starting out, as several people have mentioned, the Arduino is probably the best. Very easy to get running, you buy a prototyping board, which means you get a working microcontroller with necessary components all soldered together. The Arduino Uno can be bought for R250 (excl).

The Arduino Software can be downloaded here And if you search around there are many tutorials, covering everything from flashing an LED to robots to whatever you can imagine.

[bdt]

Can anyone here perhaps point me to a good starter to teach me about hardware programming? Like building an auto switch for low level water and that'll do something, that's just an example.

You may find the House 4 Hack guys helpful ..(somewhere in)Pretoria to Centurion is likely doable, yes?