Touchscreen project

[MaxPower!]

Hello all, longtime lurker first time poster,

I am planning a project involving this:

**broken link removed**

I am going to use some sort of microcontroller but since I have little experience with them, I want to make sure I'm picking one that will suit my application.

It says the screen is compatible with AVR, so I'm leaning that way. I have a little experience using a PIC before (my senior design project a couple years ago) and that's all for microcontrollers. The STK500 seems like a good tool to familiarize myself with the AVR before starting my main project.

Among other things, I intend to use the screen to turn on/off a few discrete outputs on the controller and display information gathered by accelerometers, and hopefully eventually integrate a tachometer and speedometer.

Can anyone comment on my choices here? Mainly, will this screen and microcontroller be up to the task?

Thanks in advance,

--Chad

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

It also says it's BASIC STAMP compatible, so would be perfectly fine with a PIC (a STAMP is just a PIC with a basic interpreter programmed in).

As you are already familiar with PIC's, why not stick to them?.

 

[MaxPower!]

It also says it's BASIC STAMP compatible, so would be perfectly fine with a PIC (a STAMP is just a PIC with a basic interpreter programmed in).

As you are already familiar with PIC's, why not stick to them?.

Interesting, I am a newb when it comes to microcontrollers and I did not know that a STAMP is pretty much a PIC. I would prefer to stick with it due to the large support community.

I read somewhere in another thread that BASIC STAMP is a waste of time, I will that assume due to it's rampant popularity that the same isn't true for the PIC?

Next I need a programmer, I just want to buy a finished product that won't give me any headaches, that doesn't require an external power supply. I found this, seems adequate:

https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=4

I would normally take the time to figure all this out myself, but I don't want to spend the money on all this required equipment before I know I'm using the right tools.

Thanks,

--Chad

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Interesting, I am a newb when it comes to microcontrollers and I did not know that a STAMP is pretty much a PIC. I would prefer to stick with it due to the large support community.

It's simply a PIC and EEPROM on a tiny board, the PIC runs a BASIC interpreter and reads tokenised BASIC from the EEPROM.

I read somewhere in another thread that BASIC STAMP is a waste of time, I will that assume due to it's rampant popularity that the same isn't true for the PIC?

There's nothing wrong with the STAMP really, just that it's VERY expensive, and runs at only a fraction of the speed of a normal PIC (because it has to interpret the code).

Next I need a programmer, I just want to buy a finished product that won't give me any headaches, that doesn't require an external power supply. I found this, seems adequate:

https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=4

I would normally take the time to figure all this out myself, but I don't want to spend the money on all this required equipment before I know I'm using the right tools.

You might try the ICD2 clones instead, these seem the way of the future - and if you look up the InchWorm in this forum it's cheaper than the Sparkfun ones.

 

[MaxPower!]

You might try the ICD2 clones instead, these seem the way of the future - and if you look up the InchWorm in this forum it's cheaper than the Sparkfun ones.

Alright so it looks like I'll need the Inchworm and Firefly kit to actually start programming these things.

Looks like the Firefly is a good tool to learn some basics on first, which I really need to do.