Intellecta Technologies Pty Ltd

for PICAXE education, Roland CAM, Techsoft CAD, Intellecta control, Atmel, Arm and Microchip education

HB Atmel

Microcontroller devices from Atmel ( www.atmel.com) are great educational devices because they can be programmed in a number of languages and are low cost. This is very important for student projects where the students may make a number of systems.

New devices such as the flash memory MEGA AVR series can be programmed from USB or serial ports without the need for special programmers.

Students can write the program, compile and download in a matter of seconds.

This section covers the use of an ATMEL MEGA8 board that links to the HB 1, 2 and 3 boards covered in previous PICAXE applications.

Advantages of the ATMEL AVR series

Multiplicity of programming languages that address all the functions of the device - watchdogs, interrupts, floating point, efficient IF statements, correct subroutine and function definitions.

Low cost

Can be supplied with bootloaders for easy download by a number of software packages.

Ideal extension for students programming in Visual BASIC and other languages

Simulation options in software show internal operation

Ideal extension to the PICAXE system.

Better software structure with IF,CASE statements

Atmel and BASCOM example

The BASCOM- AVR compiler from www.mcselec.com is an excellent introduction to microcontroller programming with serious and correct usage of all the programming strategies. It is an excellent extension to the PICAXE materials that introduce programming via text entry or a FLOWCHART.

The BASIC code in the above diagram illustrates the DIm statement that sets up storage for variables, the ALIAS statement and the IF statement that is part of the IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF structure.

The program is compiled and then can be downloaded into the micro or simulated.

The video file shows the stepping of the program, the watch on the FlashTime variable and the leds operating.