MikroElektronika's new AVR compilers (BASIC, C, Pascal)

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stevech
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Posted by stevech: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 06:56 AM
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MikroElektronika's web site is promoting v5.6 of their AVR BASIC and other compilers.

http://www.mikroe.com/eng/news/v...
http://www.mikroe.com/

I'm taking a look. In the past, the AVR support was quite buggy. Perhaps this time it's good?

(prices are lower from distributors, e.g., even Mouser. But do a try before buy. I have no affiliation with the company.)

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AVR Microcontrollers, megaAVR and tinyAVR
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Gold Markclawson
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Posted by clawson: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 10:29 AM
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Quote:

In the past, the AVR support was quite buggy. Perhaps this time it's good?

If it's "5.6" is it not simply an update to "5.5" then? If they really have rewritten their C compiler from scratch to finally be ANSI C compliant I would have expected a whole new version number like "6.0" or something. (or is "5.x" new and it's taken them 6 revisions to get something good enough to release?)

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andrianu
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Posted by andrianu: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 01:10 PM
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The only thing that pushed me to try their compiler, is a great library, with even greater documentation. You can make a simple project in minutes, it is so easy...

By the sides, does anyone know if there is such a library of functions for gcc ? or at least, is there a project start, were we can contribute?

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Gold Markclawson
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Posted by clawson: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 01:31 PM
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Quote:

By the sides, does anyone know if there is such a library of functions for gcc ?

The very best one is called "Arduino". Others include support libs from Peter Fleury and Pascal Stang.

Exactly what devices are you talking about support for anyway? Is it internal AVR peripherals like timers, SPI, UART, ADC or external things like HD44780 LCD, RTC chips, etc.?

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Bronze Markdavid.prentice
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Posted by david.prentice: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 01:46 PM
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I looked at their C compiler a couple of years ago.

I was so appalled at the non-standard nature that I have not bothered to look at ANY software from that company.

Most dev boards come with some working example programs.
This is fairly simple. The dev board has UART, LCD, I2C, ... all hard-wired on the pcb. It knows the AVR model too.

The Arduino also has this advantage. i.e. standard AVR model and wiring.

I am sure that ME provide easy to use library functions. If they obey the C language then this is excellent.
If they do not use proper function declarations or header files, they are NOT a good learning tool.
Excellent for tying people to the vendor but you will have got into very bad habits.

Incidentally, Codevision has pretty a good Wizard and hardware libraries. The licence is cheaper too!

David.

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andrianu
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Posted by andrianu: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 03:05 PM
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@clawson,
of course arduino is a very easy to use system, but the code is really to big, a simple led blinking is already 1+ Kb, and also I need to use arduino compatible chips..
Actually i did't interact to much with external peripherals, except a LCD, some servos, and that's pretty much it, so about internal peripherals, and working with them.
About init stuff, i don't really need it, i could use CVAVR for this, or just read 1 hour in the datasheet, but more for functions like UART_Write_Text(), or UART_Read_text, or TWI_Read(), or SPI_Ethernet_SendUDP.

this kind of libraries will let me to focus on actually design of the device, but not searching for hours how to configure UART, and how do i manage to send strings...

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Gold Markclawson
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Posted by clawson: Tue. Mar 13, 2012 - 04:59 PM
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Quote:

this kind of libraries will let me to focus on actually design of the device, but not searching for hours how to configure UART, and how do i manage to send strings...

Stang it is then.

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stevech
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Posted by stevech: Wed. Mar 14, 2012 - 02:48 AM
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ZBasic has a large set of library routines too. And full-up string handling too. Also in the library is a mini-RTOS preemptive task scheduler and comprehensive message queues and semaphores.

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