ITT you recommend microcontroller books

[LightningCrash]

AVR, PIC, ATmega, etc

Go!

 

[plot]

I don't remember ever having a book focused on a specific microcontroller, some basic assembly language programming books (or maybe even C), along with some general logic books explaining how the inputs and outputs really work would probably be a lot more beneficial.

There's a ton of info on the web out there about each of these micro processors, sample code, etc. which is why it's best to have a good solid foundation on the generic operation of uC's. Kind of tough to judge what your level is, if you're used to building circuits with logic gates (AND, OR, NOR, NAND, etc.) or if you're a complete newb starting from the ground up.

also, for atmel avrs (including atmega):
http://www.avr-asm-tutorial.net/avr_en/

 

[LightningCrash]

I don't remember ever having a book focused on a specific microcontroller, some basic assembly language programming books (or maybe even C), along with some general logic books explaining how the inputs and outputs really work would probably be a lot more beneficial.

There's a ton of info on the web out there about each of these micro processors, sample code, etc. which is why it's best to have a good solid foundation on the generic operation of uC's. Kind of tough to judge what your level is, if you're used to building circuits with logic gates (AND, OR, NOR, NAND, etc.) or if you're a complete newb starting from the ground up.

also, for atmel avrs (including atmega):
http://www.avr-asm-tutorial.net/avr_en/

Pretty newbish. Familiar with general ideas and soldering but haven't done much more than feed 555 timers to 7-seg LED drivers for the lulz. Understand logic gates but don't know applications for D flip flops off the top of my head.
Know a smidge of C and zero assembler.

Use any avr simulators?

 

[plot]

AVR Studio from atmel
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=2725 you have to register to download (it's free).

has an awesome simulator, as you step through your code it shows inputs going active/inactive and shows what each register is doing. pretty advanced stuff to get to that point though...


Honestly, I'd start out with "Electronics for Dummies", it'll teach you all about logic gates, and IC's. Once you can build a circuit with logic gates, you can pick up a book on microcontrollers and atmel assembly and learn how to convert your circuits of logic gates to a code on a single chip, with the added benefit of easily being able to perform calculations or whatever else is needed.

I wouldn't focus a ton of time mastering assembly, just make sure you understand the different parts of the microcontroller extremely well and what the assembly code is doing to manipulate each part. Learning how a microcontroller works is much more important than the coding itself... after that, move onto learning Embedded C. it's much easier to program with.

 

[gee]

I've programmed AVRs for several years and have only on a few occasions used assembly code on them.

Nowadays, assembly code is something you resort to for the "10% of your code that takes 90% of your CPU time" situation when you need to get more speed.

I don't really know what the whole state-of-the-art on AVR programming is, but I find tons of people in the make/instructables/sparkfun/etc community are going with Arduino (sp?) boards, which are based on AVRs. I've never worked with one personally but they sound really easy to use, and there's probably tons of guides available to get started.

There's really no reason you can't take an Arduino board and use it as a straight-up AVR board, using AVR Studio / WinAVR and writing C code if you want to.

 

[freakyhair]

I've used AVR quite a bit, and I RARELY use assembly. Actually AVR studio and WINAVR provide a great, free compiler.

Here is a book that I have found as helpful:
http://www.smileymicros.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=41

It's a good starting point, and the Butterfly can help you run through some entertaining projects.

 

[Mohonri]

I program on AVRs, and so far use exclusively assembly. Maybe it's just the nature of my code (lots of interrupt-driven stuff), or maybe I'm just too lazy to spend the time learning how to do C on AVR (and that's a LOT of laziness), or maybe I'm just a geek and like my stuff to run as efficiently as possible.

 

[odysseus145]

There are probably better books out there, but I used Embedded C Programming and the Atmel AVR to help me through my senior design project in college. It's a little expensive but it does a pretty good job of explaining concepts.