Reddit Reddit reviews MSP430 Microcontroller Basics

We found 10 Reddit comments about MSP430 Microcontroller Basics. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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MSP430 Microcontroller Basics
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10 Reddit comments about MSP430 Microcontroller Basics:

u/0x5345414E · 7 pointsr/C_Programming

If you want to learn how things actually work, don't use Arduino or Raspberry PI. I will recommend how I learned, which went very smoothly. Torrent this book, buy an MSP430 LaunchPad from TI and get to work. Note: MSP430, not MSP432. They are not the same thing.

I use PICs mostly now and I can tell you that 95% of the stuff in that book on the MSP430 will carry over to any platform. The MSP430 is great MCU for learning because it's simple (but powerful), cheap, popular, and it's actually used in commercial applications.

Whatever you do, don't start with a PIC--you will hate life.

u/rockets4kids · 7 pointsr/electronics

From what you are saying, the TI Launchpad may be just what you want. Here is a rundown of the pros and cons of the LaunchPad and the MSP430:

Pros:

  • Cost. This is the most obvious one, and it is huge. $4.30 with free shipping is an insanely good deal. When you order, just get three of them.

  • Functionality. The LaunchPad is not just a dev board, but a full-fledged in-circuit programmer and debugger. Even the cheapest G2 chips have remarkably powerful on-chip hardware debug capabilities. The LaunchPad can be use to program/debug quite a large number of chips in the MSP430 line on a remote board.

  • Architecture. The MSP430 is an absolutely wonderful architecture. The instruction set is very reminiscent of the PDP-11, often regarded as one of the best of all time. In fact, if you take the PDP-11 instruction set, eliminate the two advanced addressing modes, and use those bits to support 16 registers instead of 8, you have the MSP430 instruction set. Unlike many MCUs, the MSP430 uses a Von Neumann (rather than Harvard) architecture and memory-mapped I/O, just like most desktop microprocessors. In order to support low power operation, a very powerful clock system, multiple sleep modes, and multiple interrupt levels are available. The peripherals are all very well thought out and work very will with the interrupt and sleep systems.

  • Documentation. The TI datasheets are great. They are more readable than the datasheets from Atmel and far more readable than the datasheets from MicroChip.

  • Samples. TI has a very generous sample policy. If you order a LaunchPad, be sure to sample some G2553 chips at the same time. (The G2553 is the all-singing, all-dancing chip in the Value Line.)

  • Dev tools. TI provides free (code limited) tools that are rather good if you like GUI-based IDEs. If you are not a fan of IDEs, there is a gcc port for the MSP430, as as well as an open source, cross-platform debugging tool, mspdebug. I use mspgcc and mspdebug under OS/X and it works very well.

  • Low Power. If you want to design a truly low-power application, the MSP430 is still the way to go.

    Cons:

  • Lack of community support. You will find far less information on the web about the MSP430 than you will about the AVR or PIC MCUs.

  • Lack of third-party published documentation.

  • Lack of official or 3rd party libraries.

  • Lack of availability of DIP packaging. Very few chips in the MSP430 line are available in DIP format. All of the G2/Value Line chips are available in DIP, but very few of the chips beyond that. Only PDIP-14 and PDIP-20 packages are available, nothing larger.

  • Cost and availability. MSP430 chips are much more expensive that comparable AVRs and PICs. TI only discounts in large volume. It is often difficult to find specific chips, even by hunting around to multiple vendors.

    Addressing the cons:

  • The following book is all you need to get started with the MSP430:
    http://www.amazon.com/MSP430-Microcontroller-Basics-John-Davies/dp/0750682760 From here, you can learn all the rest from the datasheets.

  • You may be able to sample all the chips you need, particularly if you can solder SMD parts to a break-out board.

  • The MSP430 community has gotten a huge bump in the wake of the Launchpad.

    Summary:

    If you just want to use something that has good libraries and newbie-friendly support, get an Arduino.

    If you really want to learn about microcontrollers and use them the way that professional developers use them, the MSP430 is an excellent place to start.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/embedded

It's not ARM based, but this book about the MSP430 was very helpful to me. This is arguably a better starting point because the MSP430 processor is simpler than an ARM processor, but there is still a lot of carry over.

u/adaminc · 3 pointsr/ECE

Lots of TI MSP Development boards over at Sparkfun, pretty cheap too.

Then pick up a book like this one called MSP430 Microcontroller Basics.

u/lolKaiser · 2 pointsr/ECE

I'd start by telling you to get a MCU you can actually go into low-level with.

Lookup the MSP430 Launchpad and this book

Other than that, if you learned about serial interfaces in your labs (uart, spi, i2c) everything is possible if you read the datasheets

u/Enervate · 2 pointsr/ECE

I don't think the book you're looking for exists, it would be three seperate books: C/C++, communication interfaces and RTOS.

MSP430 Microcontroller Basics is a very good book, doesn't cover RTOS or USB specifically, but has lots of general info on how to develop for embedded systems (even if it says MSP430, almost all of it applies to embedded systems in general), it's pretty expensive, but I think there's a PDF version floating around somewhere.

u/type973 · 1 pointr/ECE

If you can get a copy of this book, I'd give it a try.
http://www.amazon.com/MSP430-Microcontroller-Basics-John-Davies/dp/0750682760/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321841399&sr=8-1

It really goes step by step from the very basics and explains how a MCU work. It described how TI's MSP430 works, but it's applicable to any MCU.

It's daunting at first, but in reality it's really not that complicated.

u/FunkyUptownCobraKing · 1 pointr/embedded

Seconding what other users have posted here, the datasheet is your best friend. But I might also recommend for a beginner MSP430 Microcontroller Basics by John H. Davies. I also started with the Arduino as well and when I did my internship at TI, this is the book my mentor recommended to me. The author does a really good job of going in-depth into every feature of the MSP430 and explains not just what the feature is but what it could be used for. He also provides workable Assembly and C examples. And the book isn't just good for the MSP430, you'll learn about topics that useful across the spectrum of embedded systems.