[GTALUG] GTATLUG talk about Atmel AVR

[Kevin Cozens]

Greetings, Peter Hiscocks.

I tried sending the following to your Ryerson email address but the message 
bounced so I am trying to get it to you this time via the GTALUG mailing list.

I saw a video of your talk about Atmel AVR parts. Interesting talk. There 
are a few points you didn't make about the AVR microcontrollers.

First, the instruction set is optimized for C. This is one of the reasons I 
chose to use AVR parts instead of PIC. That and no bank switching of memory 
with AVR.

Second, you can use the AVR part without the need for an external crystal in 
many cases unless you are doing something requiring very precise timing. If 
you don't need precise timing you can use the built-in oscillator but it can 
also be calibrated to improve its timing accuracy.

The real "Hello, World" program for hardware (such as microprocessors, 
microcontrollers, CPLDs, and FPGA's) is the blinking light.

The question from the audience "Is the Atmel only on the Arduino?" was 
interesting. A lot of people associate the ATMEL AVR processors with Arduino 
when Arduino is more about the form factor and pinouts on a PCB and the 
software libraries, and programming method than about a given processor. You 
could have an Arduino board that doesn't use an ATMEL part.

-- 
Cheers!

Kevin.

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