hi Alex. dragon2309 pointed out why are you doing this ? so why are you doing this ? you can get to sample microcontrollers from Microchip. if you dont want to buy and can wait for it to arrive. go with the PIC16F887. search around for a suitable programming hardware that can take the software you wrote and place it into the uC. if you are serious about this and would like to continue and learn more about microcontrollers. you can buy your self a good programmer i would have to say go with the PICKIT2 since its cheap and does a lot of things. best thing is that it hooks up to the PC via USB. Arudino is not a code, its an opensource hardware devboard for atmel line of controllers. i think. yes a uC would come blank. a bootloader is an application that you program it into a blank uC using a real hardware programmer.afterwards it would enable you to program the uC without that programming hardware, just with a serial link with a computer (USB or RS232). just google and you can find a lot of things about uC's most popular micrcontrollers -Atmel : www.avrfreaks.net -PIC : http://www.piclist.com or http://www.electro-tech-online.com/micro-controllers/
This is up to you, basically, microcontrollers like PIC's and AVR's work in HEX. now unless you're some uber-programmer who likes doing things the ultra hard way... you're never going to progrm in HEX. People usually wither program in C (or a variant of C) or machine code, either way, you write in that, then compile you're code to a .hex file which you upload to the MCU. Also, not sure where you got boot loader from, I always thought that was somethign constricted to PC's and other advacned hardware, as far as im aware, a PIC just does what you tell it to, it doesnt do any thinking or loading by itself. dragon2309
Thank you guys for all this help I know I sound stupid in all this but basically I have no idea what I'm doing yet. And yet again another n00b problem I don't know what to sample I have the page that has the PIC16F887 family up but the ones I can sample are I/ML I/P or I/PT. I have no idea what that means which one should I get? Sorry if I'm getting annoying and thanks for all the help Alex
Don't get free samples unless you plan to buy thousands of them in the future. There are plenty of shops that sell them, uk.farnell.com for starters. The ML, P and PT is the package that the PIC comes in. You want a DIP or PDIP package.
Whatever... If he buys it he'll get it in two days, if he gets a sample from Microchip he can wait 6 weeks.
took me 5 days to get mine samples thru the mail last year during senior design. and i got exactly what i wanted, i didn't have to settle for what radio shack had in stock.
So it's ok to go ahead and order a sample? And which one do you suggest? The only ones available were I/ML I/P and I/PT
looking at the package type you should go with the DIP or PDIP type which is "PIC16F887-I/P" as its the easiest to build hardware arround it. just wikipedia/google(image) the different package types and you will see what it means. good luck and have fun
Yeh, you do need to have either a scholl, college or university e-mail address, which most people can get, or already have.
spider87, trust me and buy the real thing its cheap, i was foolish to follow a design on the net but it didntt work and i cant figure why. if you dont want to buy it build blueroomelectornic's design (he calls it the junebug, you can ommit the tutor board) check it out at http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/Junebug.htm
So you'd suggest just goin ahead and getting the real one if I'm a total noob though? I'm just still in school so moneys not flowing like it should I'm trying to avoid spending too much...
