TI MSP430
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From: Paul Carpenter on 7 Apr 2006 21:21 On Thursday, in article <443575eb$0$70842$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net> scharf.steven(a)geemail.com "SMS" wrote: >Jonathan Kirwan wrote: > >> If you come up with something nifty, let us know. Right now, what I >> see is a unit that is relatively difficult to open without breaking >> the little pins (something I'll need to have them practice on, if they >> are going to consider doing more than blinking an led.) Also, >> everything is very tiny and appears "too sophisticated and daunting" >> to a child of that age. So I'd like to come up with something to help >> make this go beyond just being a canned toy that is treated as >> something that cannot be touched inside and therefore an experience >> that never gets expanded upon. > >I would break-out the pins to a breadboard or screw-terminals, or even >those little spring connectors that come on the 150 in one electronic >kits, and not let them connect directly to the little pins. > >I need something involving some buttons and switches of course. >Something involving sparks and sounds would definitely be good. Well obvious thing that springs to mind is upto 8 leds with varying pattern and speed controlled by switches and/or pots. Sound use PWM to drive an audio stage with pots to control frequency, duty cycle and perhaps some software frequency modulation of master frequency. Look at basic synthesiser blocks and pwm (software/hardware) of these frequencies and affecting each other with sweep functions, will make all sorts of intersting variable sound effects. -- Paul Carpenter | paul(a)pcserviceselectronics.co.uk <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services <http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 & mailing list info <http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate
From: larwe on 8 Apr 2006 13:03 Gary Reichlinger wrote: > and low cost development tools. Like most companies, we have a lot of > software written for other microcontrollers, but we will certainly > look at TI for new designs. www.ti.com/ez430 By the way, I forgot to mention in response to this posting: The main downside to the MSP430 is price. Currently it's pretty much the leader in low-power applications (except maybe for the MaxQ from Maxim; if you're looking at low-power architectures look at that one before you commit...). The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part.
From: Jim Granville on 8 Apr 2006 17:15 larwe wrote: > Gary Reichlinger wrote: > > >>and low cost development tools. Like most companies, we have a lot of >>software written for other microcontrollers, but we will certainly >>look at TI for new designs. www.ti.com/ez430 > > > By the way, I forgot to mention in response to this posting: The main > downside to the MSP430 is price. Currently it's pretty much the leader > in low-power applications (except maybe for the MaxQ from Maxim; if > you're looking at low-power architectures look at that one before you > commit...). On the MAXQ, watch out for the high Core-On Icc, eg one spec's 5mA @ 20MHz, and inside the data shows > 4mA at a couple of MHz. - so that does NOT clock scale well. Another recent low power CPU, that includes a micro power regulator and has 5V capable IO, is the C8051F410 from Silabs. The regulator avoids the Icc hike at higher voltage that is an issue with direct battery operation in most cores. > The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to > as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part. In what volumes ? -jg
From: larwe on 8 Apr 2006 18:05 Jim Granville wrote: > On the MAXQ, watch out for the high Core-On Icc, eg one spec's Interesting. I never looked closely at this part because frankly we've got enough devices in our stable and don't want to start learning a new one... :) > > The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to > > as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part. > > In what volumes ? 30~50K annually.
From: Grant Edwards on 8 Apr 2006 18:42
On 2006-04-08, larwe <zwsdotcom(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Jim Granville wrote: > >> On the MAXQ, watch out for the high Core-On Icc, eg one spec's > > Interesting. I never looked closely at this part because frankly we've > got enough devices in our stable and don't want to start learning a new > one... :) > >> > The MSP430 prices are annoying, though. AVRs come down to >> > as little as 1/4th the price of an equivalent TI part. >> >> In what volumes ? > > 30~50K annually. You must get a better deal on AVR parts than I could. I was comparing MSP430 and ATmega parts last month, and the ATmega parts were consistently higher priced in the 1K-5K volumes. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! I feel like a wet at parking meter on Darvon! visi.com |