Programming Enviroment

First thing first. The first step in making micro controller based application is to learn programming. Because the main core of microcontroller applications is the programming. If you are expert or little intelligent in writing good programs than you would be able to handle the hardware efficiently.

For this purpose you don’t need to go into heavy bulky programs instead make small program first. The question arises here that what programming languages are available for this purpose. Most commonly used are BASIC, C, and Assembly. BASIC is now out dated and was used on early Microcontrollers, Assembly is low level language i.e. more close to machine language so its little hard for beginners to adopt this language but it the strongest of all. The one remaining is C language. It is high level language i.e. more close to human understanding so it is preferred to use, but remember every language has its pros and cons. It is preferred that you should learn only C , because it is enough for making applications regarding MCU(Micro Controller Unit). You may not need to learn Object Oriented Programming.

The good point to start learning C is a small book named; “LET US C” whose author is "Yashwant Kanetkar". This book is very simple in language and bvery very easy to learn C from this book. It has simple progams to learn and practice. This book is easily available in market and is very cheap also. You can read and download it from internet at this address;

(LET US C- Fifth Edition);

http://www.esnips.com/doc/3c2d1754-cd4c-4b90-ad23-0fcd22a49ccb/Let-Us-C---Yashwant-Kanetkar

http://kewlshare.com/dl/6bbc33d1d5bb/Let_Us_C_-_Yashwant_Kanetkar.zip.html

You can also learn C from the online tutorial available at internet. The good one is at ;

http://www.learn-programming.za.net/programming_c_learn01.html

http://cprog.tomsweb.net/

http://www.cprogramming.com

http://cplus.about.com/od/learningc/Learn_How_to_Write_Programs_in_C.htm

There are also various blogs that can help you in understanding C language.

One thing inportant that you will also need a compiler for C programming or you can say a GUI(Graphical User Interface), in which you will practice your programs and will see the output. There are also many versions of C including Borland C, Turbo C, Visual C etc. but we are talking about Turbo C more commonly known as "TC". This compiler can be downloaded from the link below;

http://webcourse.cs.technion.ac.il/234112/Winter2004-2005/en/ho_Download%20Turbo-C.html

One thing must be kept in mind that there is different between programming for computers applications and programming for MCU applications. You will see this difference when you will start your practical work. But one might ask why to learn C? Can we start MCU programming directly? The answer is that starting MCU programming at beginner level may be difficult, if one dont know the basis of C i.e. what are variables, constants, etc. then it would be very difficult to start programming directly in MCU. Also learning C from the above mentioned book is so easy that even a fresh person can easily learn this language.

Hope you will find C interesting and those who already know C language please go to the next post.