Avalon 5 Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Hiya, Atm, I am a EE student and attempting to learn how to use msp430 instead of using an Arduino for low-powered applications. I just started looking into msp430 a month or so ago. I have read some helpful stuff from the thread "Best information for those new to the MSP430?" and looked at some blogs. I am in your care. roadrunner84, yyrkoon and LariSan 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
roadrunner84 466 Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 There are a lot of questions regarding "best beginner's guide". I haven't found the beginner's guide yet, but most help you get some understanding of it. If you care to read some information by TI, I suggest reading slau144i.pdf (just google it) chapters 1, 2, 8, 5 and 12 (in that order). Oh, and welcome Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jpnorair 340 Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 What's your programming background? Generally, I recommend reading the Users' Guide... again and again. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Avalon 5 Posted April 10, 2013 Author Share Posted April 10, 2013 There are a lot of questions regarding "best beginner's guide". I haven't found the beginner's guide yet, but most help you get some understanding of it. If you care to read some information by TI, I suggest reading slau144i.pdf (just google it) chapters 1, 2, 8, 5 and 12 (in that order). Oh, and welcome Thank you, I have recently been reading MSP430 Microcontroller Basics by John Davies, other tutorials by google search engine, and some guides/blogs linked on this board. The Family User's Guide that corresponds to my chip along with looking at example codes in the MSP430Ware has been very helpful in understanding the basic operations. What's your programming background? Generally, I recommend reading the Users' Guide... again and again. My area is mainly power electronics and power systems. My programming background is very limited. I took a C++ class freshman year and then had some Verilog and MIPS programming; however, it is no where near enough to be considered proficient. Thank you for the recommendation. The Family User's guide has been helpful along with example codes from the MSP430Ware. Though, if it weren't for the example codes, I would most likely be dead in the water. LariSan 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jpnorair 340 Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 In that case, I would recommend doing a bunch of UNIX/POSIX C programming, just to get a feel for the sort of C you are most likely going to encounter in examples and open source libs. Sure, there are some who argue that C++ is great, but the argument is not important -- 99% of the code you are going to encounter will be C. Avalon 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LariSan 81 Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 you may also want to take a look at the MSP430 Teaching ROM. It starts a little basic, but it gets into the architecture at a higher level. http://e2e.ti.com/group/universityprogram/educators/w/wiki/2043.msp430-teaching-rom.aspx Avalon, dubnet and yyrkoon 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yyrkoon 250 Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Welcome! As JP pointed out, most of your programming unless using ASM will be in C. However using the GCC set of toolchain tools, I think It may be wise to create projects as C++, even if you're only coding in C. The main reason is that the C++ compiler ( for the GCC toolchain ) seems to be more proficient at optimizing code from the get go. Then later if you're wanting to lean towards using C more, you can still create C++ projects as you learn more on how to optimize C by hand. I am still fairly new to this hardware platform myself ( v1.5 launchpad ), and as I go on learning more I am finding that the language used matter less, and less. It all depends on what makes *you* happy. With all that said, I would suggest again, creating C++ projects, and just learn plain C better for a while. Others, and myself have posted many links to external learning materials. Books, and web pages ect. Many of those books/web pages are really good for learning. Also for quickly answered questions, IRC might be an option to consider too. In my own experiences while learning, I have found the family user guide the best place to start, along with IRC, and just toying around with examples until I "get it". May I suggest though that you stay away from the davies book, at least for a while. For me, it caused all sorts of confusion, mainly because the book is a bit dated, and it covers hardware you're likely not to be using for a while. The TI workshop example videos are OK too, but I feel these are more of a copy paste exercise in programming. For me, this is not good, because it teaches nothing, but bad coding habits. <--- personal opinion. Avalon 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
yyrkoon 250 Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Is that something new LariSan ? I've never seen it before, and now am very curious about the contents. I did notice you mentioning it in another post however . . . odd having problems quoting your post lol. LariSan 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LariSan 81 Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Is that something new LariSan ? I've never seen it before, and now am very curious about the contents. I did notice you mentioning it in another post however . . . odd having problems quoting your post lol. Actually, it's not new, but it's hidden inside of the TI University Program under teaching materials. We work with a few professors who are using the platforms to create course material for other professors to use as they wish. Although it's a large download and it reminds me of those old CD-ROM's (memory lane: like encyclopedia-encarta), there's some good getting started information in there. Avalon 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Avalon 5 Posted April 17, 2013 Author Share Posted April 17, 2013 Thank you all for your suggestions. I will look into them as I tinker more with the MSP430. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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