tools and books and pic boards to learn embedded programming

Question

Can anyone suggest any good material to start embedded system programming?

1. a good PIC board to start with
2. a good book
3. Tools like compilers, OS, etc.

Answer 1

1. a good PIC board to start with
   I don't know PICs. Check digikey.com for dev boards.
2. a good book
   You will need a CPU Manual for the embedded device and the assembly reference. Past that, snag a copy of the K&R C book.
3. Tools like compilers, OS, etc.
   C Compiler should be supplied with the device. OS you should do without when first starting; that could be your first project - write an OS for it.

You should also dig up a basic electronics website and understand a bit about digital circuits.

Answer 2

Please, by all means do yourself a big favor and do NOT start your embedded career with the obsolete 8-bit PICmicro (the 16-bit PIC24/dsPIC or PIC32 are much more modern and aren't that lousy). This particular baroque architecture, where no standard-compliant C compiler is even possible, is really the worst choice for learning embedded systems programming. This makes no sense when so many other modern MCUs friendly to high-level language programming are available.

The best investment you can make at this point is to learn a modern CPU architecture, such as ARM Cortex. Plenty of excellent and inexpensive ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M0 boards are available. I would recommend the Cortex-M3 based Stellaris boards (http://www.luminarymicro.com/products/evaluation_kits.html/). For example, EKI-LM3S811 board comes with complete on-board J-Tag debugger, 96x16 pixel OLED display, an LED, a pushubtton, a potentiometer wheel (for ADC), all under $50. You can also get good deals on STM32 boards (), or NXP boards. NXP is also the first vendor of the Cortex-M0 with their very inexpensive LPCeXpresso-1114 board.

Answer 3

1. PIC and "good" may be an Oxymoron. The low end parts are severely limited and have a quirky architecture that makes entirely ISO C compliant compiler implementation difficult or impossible.
2. Micheal Pont's Embedded C and K&R 2nd ed.
3. If you choose to stick with PIC, the compilers and tools can be relatively expensive, and you will need a different tool-chain for different PIC architectures (PIC10,12,16,18,24, 32 dsPIC etc.) - there is very little compatibility between them (especially PIC32 which uses MIPS architecture), and the debug interfaces differ between generations of device. There is at least one free compiler for PIC16 and 18 (SDCC), and the MPLAB IDE and debugger are free, but unless you use a supported compiler you may be limited to debugging in assembler.

I strongly suggest that you look at either Atmel-AVR or ARM Cortex-M3 devices.

AVR because it is the only 8 bit device supported by the GNU tool-chain, has an instruction set and architecture designed to support ISO C compiler implementation, and has an architecture that is common to all parts in the range.

ARM Cortex-M3 because parts are available from multiple vendors with the widest range of on-chip resources and peripherals, and with enough horse-power and an architecture suited to easily support an RTOS.

Of the two, I'd recommend the Cortex-M3; ARM is the most widely used architecture in embedded systems, and the Cortex-M3 is a significant improvement over ARM7, and is encroaching into markets previously held by the fragmented 8-bit world. And because a true 32bit architecture will always make your life easier!

For resources and information, as well as books, I suggest you take a look at Embedded.Com, read some articles, and subscribe to their newsletters and free paper publications.

Answer 4

Have a look at the Arduino project based on the Atmel Meg128 micro.

'Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.'

Here is a link to FLOSS Weekly pod cast about Arduino