[Lab] Launch pad

[Darcy Whyte]

The Launch Pad thing is less than $5?

My arduino was around 30 bucks assembled.

Wow! Your baby's already getting married?

--
Darcy Whyte
Darcy at Siteware.com
613-563-3634
Ottawa, Canada | N 45° 25'03.1" W 75° 42'21.4"

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On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Jean-Marc LeBlanc <
jeanmarc.leblanc at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey guy,
> I been using the launch pad for about a week now.  I have not done
> that much with it yet, but I have enough to have a few comments in
> regards.  The first thing I will point out, is that it is not as easy
> to use as the arduino.  The arduino has its own library that
> simplifies allot of things.  For example if you want to write to the
> serial port with the arduino it is only a matter of serial.open(baud);
>  serial.print()  or similar.  On the launch pad, you would need to
> figure out how to divide your clock, set an interrupt every X number
> of cycles and set the bit manually.  Same thing with the analog pins.
> That being said if you have used the arduino with simply the AVR c
> code, then this is not any thing different or if you used any other
> similar processor.
>
> That being said, if you are ok with the take on programming this is a
> great development platform.  The thing that has impressed me the most
> is the debugger.  Normally you would need either an expensive
> development board or some JTag.  I never ventured into JTag since it
> looked expensive and complicated and it looked scary ( I don't know if
> it really is though).  This though, is 4.61$ and you can debug your
> code.  you can set break points, you can see the value of you
> variables and step threw your code.  All you need to do is hit the
> debug button the the eclipse IDE and debug it as you would any other
> eclipse code.
>
> The chip it self is not as powerful as the AVR (arduino). These 16 bit
> processors, only has 2k Flash program space and 128 byte of ram.
> Though for simple projects or drivers these are prefect.  They are
> cheap and you can even sample some for free.  A good use for them
> would be for sensor drivers or line drivers.  For example you could
> have that chip read the temperature convert it to Celsius and then
> that to your arduino (kinda like 2 threads).  I say this because they
> have some neat features like 10 analog pins.  Another thing I like is
> you can set an interrupt on raising or falling edges or change of any
> digital pin.  To my understanding AVR only has 2 pins for that (please
> correct me if i am wrong).
>
> As for the documentation, it took me a while to find what I needed.
> There is allot of example code with really bad comments so they are
> not that helpful.  what I found the most helpful was the uses guide
> with the data sheet.  I think it would be better if there were more
> comments or explanation.
>
> I have managed to send data to the serial port and read my snes
> controller.  With the new baby and wedding coming up this week end ;)
> I have not had time yet to put them all together so that it works.  I
> hope to have my SNES controller work on my PC by the end of the week.
> If any one is interested in the source.  I will try to comment it as
> much as I can so first time users will understand what is going on.
>
> P.S.
> if you are worried about the small program space, my code is only 64
> bytes and 16 bytes ram.
>
> Jean-Marc Le Blanc
> ---
>
> "Do you pine for the nice days of Minix-1.1, when men were men and
> wrote their own device drivers?" Linus Torvalds
>
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