C for absolute dummies

[Dave Nash]

Hi all,

I'm looking to start learning the basics of C before I start
university in October, just to get a head start and keep myself busy
for a bit. I know there's a load of tutorials out on the net, but does
anyone know of any specifically designed for embedded uCs?
It irritates me to have to use an Arduino for things at the moment:
Incredible as they are, I'm pretty sure a lot of things could be done
with an 8-pin ATTINY instead.

Cheers in advance for any help!
Dave

[Dave Nash]

Cheers Aaron, I'd totally forgotten about Sparkfun's tutorials, I've give it a razz now and see what happens.

Dave

On 16 July 2010 22:48, Aaron Shrimpton <aar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Dave,

I found the tutorials on sparkfun particularly useful when starting
out embedded programming:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorials.php

I've not seen any specifically aimed at learning C via uCs.

If you on windows I highly recommend AVR studio for a development
environment, the simulator is very useful for seeing whats going on
especially where you don't have access to a serial connection.

Cheers,
Aaron

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[G Bulmer]

Dave

If you haven't found it already, you might want to note:
http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/
It is a complete C book. In fact it's the second edition of a
published C book.
It isn't a tutorial for beginners, but it aimed at people who can
already program in something 'normal', and it does explain the meaning
of bits of C in more direct language than a language standard (though
I do like Harbison & Steele,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reference-Manual-Samuel-P-Harbison/dp/013089592X/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1279614413&sr=8-1-fkmr3)

You've probably found http://www.techbooksforfree.com/ccpp.shtml

HTH - GB

[Dave Nash]

Cheers for the links, I'd not found either of those actually, my Google fu must be weak at the moment.

I did some work coding some edge detection stuff in C# a few years back, this should be a good step back into it all again. Thanks a lot for your help.

Dave

[Andrew Thomas]

Hi Dave,

Hope I'm not overcooking GB's expert advice, but I thought I'd mention that when I'm learning something new like that I like to have a quick read of compiler manuals. My reasoning is that most compilers are based around a K&R (Kernigan and Richie, if I've spelt it right) core language, but they all have tons of non-K&R functions that are compiler specific.

For the core language and functions there's useful stuff on the microelektronica website, and also for the ccs compiler (inc. examples):

http://www.ccsinfo.com/content.php?page=syntax-functions

As I mentioned above though, reading the manual for the compiler you're going to use saves a lot of time as most of the useful functions are compiler specific.

I wish the arduino ide would support 8 pin chips. Presumably it's a memory limitation.

I hope that helps :-)

Best wishes,

Andrew.

Dave

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[G Bulmer]

AFAIK, there isn't anything inherent in the toolchain or chip to get
in the way of using the IDE to create and build code for almost any
AVR (might have to hand a few flags to the toolschain, but maybe gcc
might look at an environment variable?).

I believe the Arduino IDE supports 8-pin chips through to upload
except you'd need to get a booloader onto one. There are 4K 8-pin
chips which, I believe, could be made to work (when I investigated the
bootloader source, it looked like older Arduino loaders worked on
ATmega48's).

I believe Michael Nicholls used the IDE to write the code for his
Nikon gizmo, then used an ICSP programmer to flash the chip, without
using the bootloader.

HTH
GB

On Jul 20, 12:27 pm, Andrew Thomas <andrewmarktho...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> Hope I'm not overcooking GB's expert advice, but I thought I'd mention that when I'm learning something new like that I like to have a quick read of compiler manuals. My reasoning is that most compilers are based around a K&R (Kernigan and Richie, if I've spelt it right) core language, but they all have tons of non-K&R functions that are compiler specific.
>
> For the core language and functions there's useful stuff on the microelektronica website, and also for the ccs compiler (inc. examples):
>
> http://www.ccsinfo.com/content.php?page=syntax-functions
>
> As I mentioned above though, reading the manual for the compiler you're going to use saves a lot of time as most of the useful functions are compiler specific.
>
> I wish the arduino ide would support 8 pin chips. Presumably it's a memory limitation.
>
> I hope that helps :-)
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Andrew.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Nash <plainn...@gmail.com>
> Sent: 20 July 2010 09:44
> To: birmingham...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [birmingham-hack-space] Re: C for absolute dummies
>
> Cheers for the links, I'd not found either of those actually, my Google fu
> must be weak at the moment.
> I did some work coding some edge detection stuff in C# a few years back,
> this should be a good step back into it all again. Thanks a lot for your
> help.
>
> Dave
>

> On 20 July 2010 09:29, G Bulmer <gbul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Dave
>
> > If you haven't found it already, you might want to note:
> >http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/
> > It is a complete C book. In fact it's the second edition of a
> > published C book.
> > It isn't a tutorial for beginners, but it aimed at people who can
> > already program in something 'normal', and it does explain the meaning
> > of bits of C in more direct language than a language standard (though
> > I do like Harbison & Steele,
>

> >http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reference-Manual-Samuel-P-Harbison/dp/0130895...
> > )
>
> > You've probably foundhttp://www.techbooksforfree.com/ccpp.shtml

>
> > HTH - GB
>
> > On Jul 16, 9:08 am, Dave Nash <plainn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
>
> > > I'm looking to start learning the basics of C before I start
> > > university in October, just to get a head start and keep myself busy
> > > for a bit. I know there's a load of tutorials out on the net, but does
> > > anyone know of any specifically designed for embedded uCs?
> > > It irritates me to have to use an Arduino for things at the moment:
> > > Incredible as they are, I'm pretty sure a lot of things could be done
> > > with an 8-pin ATTINY instead.
>
> > > Cheers in advance for any help!
> > > Dave
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Birmingham Hack Space" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to
> > birmingham...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > birmingham-hack-...@googlegroups.com<birmingham-hack-space%2B unsub...@googlegroups.com>