Just order the AVR Dragon from Digikey. No telling how long it long it's going to take, on back order. For the price, should be plenty nice for a beginner in microcontrollers (first time).
Just to get started, I downloaded AVR Studio 4.12, and the service pack 4. Intalled them and tried an example in the simulator. Everything worked as described. One weird thing, I can't access the help files from the program, the start menu, or even direct from the folder. The Atmel site seems a little light on information (might not know exactly where to look), but they make many references to the AVR Studio help, also mention online help. Still haven't figured that out yet.
I plan to program in assembler because I use to be pretty good with 6502. Think it will go easier than learning C. Should go smoothly, looked over the instruction set PDF (150 pages), and doesn't look too bad. 6502 only has 3 registers, AVR has 32 working registers.
The main site/forum for AVR, is AVRfreaks.com. I did the register think, but can't seem to get logged in. I get a screen that tells me to enable Cookies, which I did for the site, still no good. Did manage to get a few good pointers though. I was going to get a few ATAtiny11 (sixty cents each) to practice on, flash a few LEDS... But apparently these are seriously limited compared to the tiny13 ($1.20). Will get the data sheets for both and compare, but will most likely go with the tiny13 for my first chip. The AVR Dragon doesn't come with a ZIF socket, not real sure if this will be a big deal, at this time not to worried about it. Looked around and found that a 40 pin goes for anywhere from $7.00 to 16.00, plus shipping... perhaps not worth the added expense. The Dragon can program supporting devices in-system, probably what I'll use most anyway, don't see myself doing production work, just misc. projects at home.
Any, have been consider taking the leap into microcontrollers for a while, and did a lot of reading. When I saw this USB programmer for under $50 (most likely around $65 after S & H, taxes and crap...), figured it was time. I chose AVR over PIC mostly because of the instruction set. PIC has only 36 opcodes, where AVR has 90. I'm pretty good at making do with what I have availiable, but why limit myself by choice? I just know how much more effort it takes to make some work for something it was made for. In a high level language like C or BASIC, you would never know the difference, except in size of the compiled code (much larger). Sure, a couple of thousand bytes is more than enough, and most application will need lots of delay loops so speed isn't an issue either.
Would like to hear about AVR Dragon and AVR Studio. Just getting started, so any suggestions or words of caution before do some damage. I've got a few weeks before the Dragon ships, so plent of time to get ready.
Just to get started, I downloaded AVR Studio 4.12, and the service pack 4. Intalled them and tried an example in the simulator. Everything worked as described. One weird thing, I can't access the help files from the program, the start menu, or even direct from the folder. The Atmel site seems a little light on information (might not know exactly where to look), but they make many references to the AVR Studio help, also mention online help. Still haven't figured that out yet.
I plan to program in assembler because I use to be pretty good with 6502. Think it will go easier than learning C. Should go smoothly, looked over the instruction set PDF (150 pages), and doesn't look too bad. 6502 only has 3 registers, AVR has 32 working registers.
The main site/forum for AVR, is AVRfreaks.com. I did the register think, but can't seem to get logged in. I get a screen that tells me to enable Cookies, which I did for the site, still no good. Did manage to get a few good pointers though. I was going to get a few ATAtiny11 (sixty cents each) to practice on, flash a few LEDS... But apparently these are seriously limited compared to the tiny13 ($1.20). Will get the data sheets for both and compare, but will most likely go with the tiny13 for my first chip. The AVR Dragon doesn't come with a ZIF socket, not real sure if this will be a big deal, at this time not to worried about it. Looked around and found that a 40 pin goes for anywhere from $7.00 to 16.00, plus shipping... perhaps not worth the added expense. The Dragon can program supporting devices in-system, probably what I'll use most anyway, don't see myself doing production work, just misc. projects at home.
Any, have been consider taking the leap into microcontrollers for a while, and did a lot of reading. When I saw this USB programmer for under $50 (most likely around $65 after S & H, taxes and crap...), figured it was time. I chose AVR over PIC mostly because of the instruction set. PIC has only 36 opcodes, where AVR has 90. I'm pretty good at making do with what I have availiable, but why limit myself by choice? I just know how much more effort it takes to make some work for something it was made for. In a high level language like C or BASIC, you would never know the difference, except in size of the compiled code (much larger). Sure, a couple of thousand bytes is more than enough, and most application will need lots of delay loops so speed isn't an issue either.
Would like to hear about AVR Dragon and AVR Studio. Just getting started, so any suggestions or words of caution before do some damage. I've got a few weeks before the Dragon ships, so plent of time to get ready.