sacah.net

Getting into Microcontrollers with the HC08 (MC68HC908QT4)

posted by sacah on picaxe, hc08,

I have been interested in getting into small embedded devices for some time, and with my recent 3 weeks off over Christmas, I decided to have a squiz at what was around. I was initially hoping for something under $20-$30 to play with as I had heard PICs were cheap, in my searching I couldn't find a starter pack for under $80, I broadened my search and found a range of microcontroller starter packs(evaluation packs) for around the same price. I have had some experience with HC08s in a job when I was younger, so I decided to settle with one of these.
http://au.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=4154320

The other good thing with one of these is I have a lot of room to grow into more powerful microcontrollers using the same development package, unlike what I had read about the PICs being under powered for anything real.
I must say I did find, after already purchasing my HC08, PICAXE® microcontrollers which were quite cheap and had a much simpler programming language, but after looking into them further, I would still have opted for the HC08.

My first hurdle was getting the Metrowerks software to work, turns out the included CD was version 2.1 and their latest version was 6.1, way out of date, which was why I couldn't get the Registration process to work.
If you buy this product, you will receive the Special Edition: CodeWarrior for Microcontrollers, which restricts your code size to 32K, if you also have an old version included, download the new one from their Website, under Downloads - > Special Edition Software.
After some email support from Freescale, everything was licensed and I was ready to go.

I will be sparotically posting my findings as I play with this microcontroller, so come back every now and then if your interested.