Microcontrollers and Mac

Stuart's icon

Please forgive the total amateurishness of this post, but I'm a total
amateur.

I've been browsing the Net, looking at some of those microprocessor
development boards (Stamp and what have you) - all very thrilling stuff
(to an amateur, at least) - and all for Windows.

And cheap as they may be, I simply don't have room for yet another
computer. Or the cash for another laptop, let alone enough laps.

Can anyone steer me toward something for Macs ? I don't need anything
hardcore - I'll be quite happy using the board to deal with midi and a
four-row LCD display.

Thank you,

Stuart Grimshaw

Scott Fitzgerald's icon

there's arduino : http://arduino.berlios.de/

and i think there's a bs2 environment for the mac.
http://physicalcomputing.co.za/bs2.html

or you can program your pic/bx24/atmel etc through virtual pc and use
a usb--serial interface.

Michael Egger's icon

I had a great time with Murat n Konar's exellent MacBS2 BasicStamp
programming app for the Macintosh - worked very well
http://www.muratnkonar.com/otherstuff/macbs2/index.shtml

you'll only need a Keyspan serial adaptor, no Virtual PC, no
Development board....
integrated BasicStap reference, syntax highlighting, all very well done!

if you're headed for more power, and more choice of mcu's for less cash
- and if you don't fear the Terminal application - there's also an
All-Mac-Way to program Atmel AVR Controllers in C, using open source
tools.
It was a bit of a headache to get it all running, but now works very
well. We've documented it here:
http://www.anyma.ch/research/articles/avronmac.html

we write code in BBedit or Xcode, then compile it in the terminal and
flash the processor from the terminal, using an Atmel STK500
development board...
there's even ways to do it without a dev board, but we didn't have
time to document it yet.

feel free to contact me for more information...

Michael