SparkFun Forums

[Qaisar Azeemi]

HI All;

can any one learn the programming and interfacing of PIC, AVR, LPC etc and other microcontrollers only by searching internet and experiments and carry projects without teachers ore instructors?

i am fresh Graduate and beginner to this field and need help from experts.

hope you will help me.

thank you in anticipation.

Regards,

Qaisar Azeemi

[fll-freak]

One can learn just about anything with enough reading, experimenting and breaking of parts. Over my lab bench, I have a sign that reads "Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined".

Start with an Arduino (hardware and software) and all the support for them and you can get someplace pretty quick.

[Qaisar Azeemi]

thank you freak. what you suggest, should i start from PIC? what will be the requirments for that? I mean which software and hardware i should use for that.
thank you

[leon_heller]

Buy one of the PIC starter kits:

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcpl ... CmicroDemo

[stevech]

or better, the hugely popular Arduino on the AVR

[Qaisar Azeemi]

what is Arduino? plz tell me some thing about it and provide me a link also. thank you.

[leon_heller]

Try Google.

[Dave Mueller]

The Arduino is a hardware platform and software based on the Atmel chips that is designed to be easy to learn.
Buy a genuine Arduino instead of a cheap clone so that you help support the open source project.

http://www.arduino.cc/

Yes, you can learn to program microcontrollers by yourself but to get questions answered, you must rely on message boards where sometimes you get good answers and sometimes you don't.

You can learn with either Microchip or Atmel, each one has advantages and disadvantages. However, for a beginner, the Arduino (Atmel uC) system makes it much easier and there are a lot of nice accessory boards. I don't think anything similar exists for the PIC.

[jremington]

Don't overlook the PICAXE! Nothing beats it for cost, simplicity and ease of programming.
It is a UK product but there are U.S. distributors, including Spark Fun. Check out the 8-pin
prototype kit for $3.95! http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8321

The user forum is extremely active and helpful. http://www.picaxe.com/

[Xykon]

There is also the Uno32 which uses a modified Arduino IDE but uses a PIC Chip. Arduino isn't limited to just Atmel AVR.