TI releases Launchpad, a $4.30 (shipping included) microproccessor dev kit | Hacker News Reader

TI releases Launchpad, a $4.30 (shipping included) microproccessor dev kit

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249 pointsmcantelon102 comments

Summary for Reference: Smaller package, 1/8th the memory of an Arduino.

2k ROM, 128 bytes of RAM, 10 IO lines, 8 ADC inputs on one variant, 200ksps with sample and hold. Very low power consumption (if you make it work that way).

$0.75 for the microcontroller in volume.

I need to read more about the USB interface. I suspect it can be used to communicate with the serial controller while the chip runs, which with the right software could make it be a nice way to build small USB controlled devices and sensors.

Thanks for the tl;dr, I'm left wondering about the state of the software to actually program and deploy code to the device though. From what I saw on HackADay, it appears the two supported IDEs are Windows only (utterly unacceptable, for me). (I know, the gcc port is there, but it's pretty incomplete, from my understanding)

This leaves me, a relative newbie to embedded dev, what kind of pitfalls I'd run into if I tried to purchase one of these.

It's incredibly frustrating, after years of being in a relative comfort zone with the realm of general desktop/server software, to try to learn more about embedded, and then be uncertain as to what materials you even need.

I have the same newbie issues, but it's $4.30. Worst case, it's totally useless to me, and I'm out the cost of a latte.

Cheaper than going to a movie and, for the hacker-minded, almost certain to be at least as entertaining as many movies.

Which is why I'm going to buy it anyway.

|It's incredibly frustrating, after years of being in a relative comfort zone with the realm of general desktop/server software, to try to learn more about embedded, and then be uncertain as to what materials you even need.

That is, to me, one of the greatest feelings in the entire world. I remember being a kid and installing a qbasic compiler for the first time. HOLY CRAP it was like learning magic. There was SO much wonder.

Now it's just work. I know how to make my computer do pretty much whatever I want. Microcontrollers offer me the opportunity to experience that wonder of learning something new again.

I don't think you understand what I was describing as frustrating. Ignorance isn't the problem, it's the uncertainty of tools and "what I need to get started".

I love solving problems, discovering new things, but the whole embedded dev experience is disempowering because a single mistake in ordering can mean waiting days/weeks to resolve a missing part, not clicking to another website for a missing download.

The whole stack lacks the flexibility of software, for obvious reasons, as much as I love it so far.

That's part of what makes it exciting! I was a hardware engineer before switching to software. At that time, we used to say to the software guys "if you guys screw up your design, you recompile; if we screw up, we have to update the schematic, update the cad drawings, order new pcb boards, wait a few weeks, and hope it works next time". The pressure made it fun. Not to mention playing with oscilloscopes and function generators. If it was a minor glitch you could get by by chopping some pins or doing some soldering. Man, that was a good first job out of college. Oh and I'm definitely ordering one of these, even though I haven't used Windows in a few years either. I've got a box with xp somewhere...

He's not frustrated with the unforgivability of hardware design. He's frustrated with the overhead involved in getting started learning the ropes (finding the right tools, learning about the conventions involved in identifying the right parts).

Rule #1 of embedded development is you develop with the tools you have, not the tools you wish you had.

Get a Windows box, or deal with gcc (and ideally help out the developers if it's still got some shortcomings.)

>gcc (and ideally help out the developers if it's still got some shortcomings.)

GCC has a long and storied development environment. I can't exactly just step in and start spewing code at them. It's not an easy culture to penetrate, nor codebase.

>develop with the tools you have, not the tools you wish you had.

I'm actually going to call tough shit on that, and respond with, "buy the dev kit/platform that supports more than one flawed platform"

Regardless, I'm still going to buy a kit.

I'm actually going to call tough shit on that, and respond with, "buy the dev kit/platform that supports more than one flawed platform"

A valid strategy as long as you aren't building a million of something.

I'm a programmer messing around with dev kits. I think building a million of something is a Maserati Problem (TM), at this point.

I feel you on the windows dev environment rejection. Ive completely written off PIC on that basis. One of the shittiest single os development environments ever.

You can use Piklab for Linux. I have developed a complete firmware for a USB device using Piklab.

GCC port works fairly well, yes it takes some finagling to get working correctly, but any self described hacker should be able to do it in a couple of hours.

Not only that, but clang has upcoming MSP430 support, with many supporters already actively attempting to get it functioning correctly in an attempt to replace GCC.

You can buy a USB Bitwhacker from SparkFun, use Piklab for Linux to develop for it (in assembly), and use a command-line tool to flash it over USB (I can't remember the name of the tool). Or, you can buy a PICkit, and program the PIC directly without needing a bootloader.

That's still vary pricy for a low end bulk micro controwler, still you can still do a lot with 128 bytes of RAM and 2k ROM.

Happy hacking ;)

Sample em from Ti. They send the chips out free of charge, they can easily be used for breadboarding. Use a goodFET (http://goodfet.sf.net/) to program it.

I've been having plenty of fun that way for a while now.

Hasn't the MSP430 been out for a while? I recall a devkit that used a USB dongle with the chip mounted on it for around $20.

I know this chip has some traction in low-cost microcontroller work like utility meters, but why try to get this into the Arduino space?

The wikipedia page says that it dates from the 90ies and is modeled after the PDP11. Main differences to AVRs seem to be that they are designed for lower power consumption and are von Neumann instead of Harvard architecture, otherwise it depends on your requirements which processeor fits your needs. For example, the lager controller included in this bundle compares to the Attiny 2312, which has the same amount of RAM and ROM, the same 16MHz maximum clock, more IO-pins, another timer, PWM-channels, some EERPOM and a hardware UART, but higher power consumption and fewer and slower ADCs.

As to why now, I think they are targeting the educational market (there is a special link for universities on the wiki page), trying to get exposure to students who would otherwise default to using arduinos for term projects. They are not selling these boards for profit, but for mindshare.

Cause AVR sucks when it comes to low power applications. Running an MSP430 off three lemons as a battery is completely feasible and Ti has/had videos showing them doing just that.

Yes, the MSP430 has had the USB Fet for a while, but because it is not easy to use in a breadboard it did not have the same appeal. This looks much nicer for that reason.

Why get into the Arduino space? Not everyone is in love with AVR's chips ... this guy here included ;-). Any device that is CHEAP (I'd rather buy this for a class where we are going to blink an LED than an Arduino) and has much more potential knowing the MSP430 architecture.

I was talking about this device today, and a friend in education perked up when she heard the price. The price is low enough that public schools can do stuff with them on regular funds.

THe MSP430 is a fairly popular microprocessor for lots of small applications (that don't have to run an OS).

Any hardware hackers on HN? I bought an Arduino board a few months ago and ended up blowing out the few LEDs the kit came with because I didn't understand how resistors/volts etc. worked. Can anyone direct me to a guide on electronics specifically for small hardware hacking? I'm certain taking EE classes or reading Physics/Electronics books would help but it would also take a lot of time. I'd rather concentrate on writing neat software once the hardware is wired up. Is there a guide to learning the basics of hardware so I can get started with Arduino and maybe LaunchPad?

Edit: Thanks everyone for the links. These are pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Hopefully I'll hack up some interesting stuff soon :)

Ladyada's guide (http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/) has all of the basics to get you started with the physical parts of hooking up your Arduino.

I've glanced at "Lessons in Electric Circuits" (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/) by Tony Kuphaldt, and it seems to cover all of the physics that you would need to get started with hardware hacking. Volume I appears to be the most relevant to you, covering the basics of voltage and currents. Once you understand that, you'll most likely be looking at specific parts that perform all of the complicated electronic functions (A/D Converters, H-Bridges, Omp Amps, etc), and don't need to fully understand the physics behind them, although it helps.

I'm currently going through "Making Things Talk" by Tom Igoe, whose audience appears to be non-technical, or at least non-hardware, people. It does not cover the physics and math behind the projects though.

This (LadyAda) is what I used, and I turned out fine.

You can read the United States Navy's NEETS modules for a quick introduction to electronics. Module 1, "Introduction to Matter, Energy, and Direct Current" would probably be enough to keep you from blowing LEDs.

http://jricher.com/NEETS/

Make: Electronics by Charles Platt is a very good beginners book with lots of projects. Not Arduino specific though.

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596153755

Excellent suggestion. The book is a visual wonder, well-written, and fun.

It's understandable that you'd rather concentrate on writing neat software, but when your hardware doesn't work and your guide doesn't help you, I'm guessing you'll wish you'd spent a little more time learning basic circuits.

To that end, Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics is an oft-recommended starting volume, and it will remain useful as a reference---it's got little "cookbook" sections at the end of each chapter. At the very least, read through Chapter 1---that'll cover the basics of passive components (R, L, C) and diodes, and introduce you to some useful terminology. You can stop there, or continue through transistors, op-amps, filters, power circuits, et cetera, or just refer to chapters as necessary.

You should be able to find used copies of H&H all over the place, since lots of intro courses use it as a textbook, and if you're doing anything more than wiring up a bunch of blinky lights, it's likely you'll find it very useful in the future.

(I'm a mixed-signal IC designer, so I'll admit my view of what everyone "ought" to know might be a bit on the aggressive side. :)

If Radio Shack still sells the Forrest Mims book I'd pick that up. It's a great book.

They do. Amazon does as well for the same price. I just received mine yesterday.

I was going to suggest the Mims books as well. He had quite a few of them.

I have several (or did at one point); the basic electronics is a decent intro, and then there are good ones on op-amps and the 555 timer. If you are totally new to hardware hacking it might not be a waste of your time to play around a little with some of those circuits just so you can learn how to wire up an IC on a breadboard.

Plus even if you only think you're going to do embedded systems stuff, eventually you're going to want to interface with the rest of the world without going through a PC, and knowing a little about analog circuits or old-school TTL will come in handy.

They were great books and it's a sad commentary on Radio Shack if they no longer carry them.

As the parent comment suggests, information and education have real value in this space. At NerdKits (http://www.nerdkits.com/), we spend our time empowering our customers through the kinds of hands-on electronics & microcontroller learning experiences that you aren't likely to get with a pre-made PCB and a stack of libraries. Hackers, even the "newbies," shouldn't be scared of interrupts, registers, transistors, or even Makefiles, and you can see that we try to bring that out in many of our video tutorials:

http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/

Why is your kit $80 when the individual components can be bought for less than <$40 and even less in bulk?

Maybe $50 or $60 would be a reasonable price, but $80 is pushing it.

$40 for parts, $40 to support their customers in a satisfactory manner. Charge what its worth to your customers, not what it costs to make it. Add $40 in value and you'll have plenty of takers.

Yup... we've helped a lot of people get started with electronics and programming, and had a lot of fun doing it!

We don't make money on parts. We see it as a combination of content (our non-free PDF guide, and our free video tutorials) and support (via e-mail and our forums (http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/)). We wrote the book, which took a lot of time and continues to evolve. And we have to deal with a dozen suppliers, testing the incoming microcontrollers, LCDs, USB cables, etc., picking dozens of different little resistors and LEDs and such into a bag, and assembling the kits and taking them to the post office. Then handle support questions, marketing, and hope to have a little time left in the day to make some progress toward a new video tutorial and/or kit!

And last but not least, I'd like to be able to pay my rent and eat lunch. I think that the HN community understands that profit is not a dirty word, and information is valuable.

More generally, as a business lesson: for a business selling physical goods, even when zero to minimal post-sale support is needed, I believe it's fairly well known that the business must set the retail price at typically 3 to 5 times the cost of the raw materials. This can vary a bit depending on the level of manufacturing/assembly/post-sale action/non-physical value-add needed, but it usually isn't too far from the 3-5x multiplier on either end. Too low and you can't cover costs (labor, marketing, etc), and too high and a competitor is likely to try to eat your lunch.

Sold.

I hope my kit helps a bit with your rent.

Speaking as a customer: it's a very nice deal. "$40" to have these guys gather and package all that equipment for you is a deal in itself, but the real value is in the awesome tutorials they've written and filmed that go hand-in-hand with the hardware package, the responsive support, and the vibrant community.

To get back to chime's original question: I'd certainly recommend the NerdKit as an efficient, hands-on crash course in electronics. Fun too.

Out of the norm customer support is well worth the extra $40. I posted a small issue I was having with my nerdkit in reply to an arduino thread (when spark fun had its free day). That same day: I received a reply on HN and my email resolving the issue.

There's a decent community. There's a pdf that goes through the basics of electronics, but also has hands on exercises.

I can buy a washing machine for $400, but why not toss in the extra $90 for the warranty/support for the years to come?

I found EE to be too expensive for my tastes. I was working on an idea with the WiiMote presentation fundamentals as my core. Few hundred infrared leds + UV detectors + computer = awesome pc game!

Also, I would strongly recommend getting a bench power supply that has an adjustable current limit.

I have an old and trusted Thurlby Thandar supply which gets used for all development, including things that will later be powered by a host USB port.

I have it set to a little above what the project needs, typically a few 10s of milliamps. My (regular) mistakes just result in the voltage dropping away - no fireworks.

SparkFun.com has some books like that.

I too got into Arduino hacking last week and no blown bits yet!

While this doesn't help you in general, you can stop an LED from blowing out by connecting it in series with a 220 Ohm resistor, if you're just hooking it up to an Arduino. You can vary the resistance up or down a little to get the LED brighter or dimmer.

For properly learning what's what, I started out with Lessons in Electric Circuits, which is pretty decent:

http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/

http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page is an electronics wiki.

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Extremely aggressive price for the microprocessor, but there are large hidden software costs. Their proprietary IDE is listed at $445 (http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/ccstudio.html)

Is the IDE required? For me, a command line tool (compiler?) would suffice.

It looks like gcc can be used (http://mspgcc.sourceforge.net/). I'll have to brush up on my C.

Same here, but I expect at least C code for those little chips will remain manageable in size.

Also llvm ( http://www.llvm.org ) has experimental msp430 backend.

[edit] Found the real development site: https://www.fooe.net/trac/llvm-msp430/wiki

Once compiled, how does the transfer to chip go?

There should be some kind of utilities. So far I have at least used one for Atmel AVR-s and MIPS architectures.

I'm not saying you're wrong, as I'm not familiar with this stuff in the slightest, but the blog post mentions two supposedly free IDEs: IAR Embedded Kickstart, and Code Composer Studio 4.

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Code_Composer_Studio...

http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/iar-kickstart....

When I worked in the TI DSP group (many years ago) we called it "Code Composter". $4.30 is cheap... but what about the time cost of using "Code Composter"?

This was about 6 years ago, so I hope for all the hacker that CC is better now.

The free IDE should be adequate for this and there is a port of GCC for the controller.

It, however, is Windows-only.

I have downloaded it and will try to run it under Wine, but I bet it won't like the USB.

Please update us with your findings once you try it.

Failed miserably. Parts of the software install, parts don't and, in general, it seems dysfunctional.

Shouldn't we s/microprocessor/microcontroller/g ?

It looks like these the are the chips we are talking about

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/msp430g2211.html

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/msp430g2231.html

Bad choice of name IMO considering the market, could easily be confused with: https://launchpad.net/

On the other hand:

So here it is: Launchpad will set you back four dollars and thirty cents. And for now shipping is included.

Holy crap, that's an awesome price!

That is an impressive price point. I've always been a bit surprised at how expensive the arduino is, specifically that as it's become super popular and companies are actually selling decent volumes of it, the price point has not gone down remarkably (or at all?).

As the Arduino design is non-proprietary, there are a number of cheaper Arduino clones and variants.

The arduino doesn't seem that expensive to me. It's sure no $4, but $29 seems fantastically modest. You say 'thats too much to put in a product', but I don't think it was ever meant to be in shipping products.

The whole shields part gets expensive though.

True - but imagine if there was one in all your consumer electronics, with a usb port and all the code is open source. I think we'd see the pace of innovation speed up a lot, and electronics would start to be a little bit more personalized and friendly than they are today.

We use MSP430s at work albeit much larger versions with more RAM and peripherals. MSPs are pretty nice processors if you need something really low power and they have some models with built-in USB endpoints, which means you don't have to add an FTDI chip or similar.

From the looks of it TI used another micro to generate the JTAG interface via USB. In the past they used a USB chip with built in 8051 to turn USB into JTAG. It's kind of a hassle but just having the USB part on the experimenter board is worth the money since you can use it as a USB-serial converter (I think.)

As to the development tools: CodeComposer is great if you already know Eclipse and the code size limit is high enough that you can still do some real work. IAR is good too but the full version is much more expensive than CCS so we're going with CCS.

Haven't tried the GCC msp backend.

Getting started with a Launchpad is actually cheaper than getting started with a similarly-sized AVR. The 20-pin ATtiny2313 is $2.88 from SparkFun. The programmer + shipping will throw the cost to about $30.

Although I suspect these "value-line" microcontrollers aren't quite as powerful as an AVR.

The 2313 should be similar in power, it has up to 18 I/O lines instead of 10 and an additional 128B of EEPROM and 2 ADCs, which is two more than the MSP430G2211 and six less than the 2231 [edit: and the TI ADCs might be faster]. But at $2.88 you are being seriously ripped off, I pay 1.10€ at reichelt.de including 19% sales tax, and as far as I can remember, the Euro is still unter US$2.00

Or you could make a programmer with this.

UPDATE: Just ordered two Launchpads.

Although I believe TI is actually losing money if you order these in small quantities. I estimate shipping is around $10. Even ordering two, TI still loses a few bucks. Watch as this thing skyrockets back to $20 in a few weeks.

A bit off topic, but related....does anyone know of a website for industrial automation parts for bulding custom automated "machines"?

Specifically what I am in need of right now is a low cost solution for automatically proportioning (by weight) pet treats. They are an odd shape and a bit sticky so our existing machine can't seem to cope with them, and apparently a proper machine which can handle it is ~ $100k.

So in the meantime I thought perhaps a person could take some off the shelf parts and build something from scratch.

Anyone have any insight on this??

That's not a difficult task unless I misunderstand you. I have a load cell with a weighing platform somewhere in my garage and never got around to using it.

What part are you having trouble sourcing? For general electromechanical components, MSC, Small Parts, McMaster-Carr are my usual go-to places. Are you looking to build a machine that can take pet treats from a hopper and bag them by weight? That's a pretty straightfoward task: the 100k pricetag probably has more to do with speed/throughput and low economies of scale than anything else.

PM/email me if you need more help.

What would you build with this? [genuine question]

Blinking LED's! Blinking blue LED's!

At $4, I'm going to order one first, and figure that out later.

I'd probably start with something like a DIY lucid dream mask.

http://cre.ations.net/creation/face-mounted-lucid-dreaming-m...

Hmmm:

A complex LED flasher? Maybe one that instead of flashing, smoothly fades the LEDs in or out?

Want to run that lawnmower more efficiently and cleanly? Be the first on your block with a mower that has an onboard engine management controller.

Of course: robots, robots, robots.

A Newton's laws demonstrator that times how long it takes from when you release it to when it hits the floor and uses that to calculate the initial height. Bonus points if it displays G force when it hits the ground so you can experiment with different types of padding.

A temperature controller for your overclocked game machine?

And that's just simple hobby stuff without even getting into real industrial uses!

I love being a hardware hacker!

Am I right that most uses of this would rely on plugging in sensors and other devices for it to monitor or control?

Yes, it's just a computer, albeit a very specialized one. And like any computer, it's useless without I/O

yes

I work in a physics lab. It would make a nice little controller to run some of the stuff we make. Eg.: for one of our microscopes it could display some parameters like the rotation speed or scan frequency (with eg. a PLL to measure frequency), automatize the start-up process, do a shutdown if temperature goes too high... right now this is all mostly manual.

Am I the only one who can't find a link in the article that actually links to a store where you can buy it? I can't even find it with a Google search; no direct hits and the ones that look like they might lead near it on TI.com time out.

It's on the wiki. http://www.ti-estore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&...

But the store doesn't seem to load :(

Their entire store seems to be bogged down right now, probably give it a few hours.

few hours seems at this point bit optimistic. 5 hours later and constantly getting 502 Proxy Error. At least earlier it loaded after some tries.

This hopefully means also that there will be quite a community when everyone gets their order.

edit: I made order from Mouser. Free shipping too, and their website actually works :)

Hah.. Mouser wants me to pay 40€ extra for backorder :S

Free shipping? Is that cause you got in the order before they were backordered?

Actually no. Mousers checkout page was just buggy (showed 0,00 as shipping costs), but after few emails the truth was revealed; they want 20 for shipping apparently

Duh.. tried to order it, but TI's e-store is missing my country (Estonia) :S

It is strange that the IDEs are not free.

It says they are free:

>two free IDEs; Code Composer Studio 4 and IAR Embedded Workbench Kickstart

Kickstart is Windows-only and Code Composer seems to be an Eclipse plugin (so cross-platform, but not lightweight like Arduino's minimalist IDE).

I meant free as in freedom...

The IDE's have a size limited version, both of which have a limit larger than the chips that ship with the launchpad

TI's site seems to be down. Are there any vendors selling these?

I got through eventually. It took several tries, though.

I don't know if we can buy this from their website. I contacted one of the authorized distributor agent. She said she is going to find details and let me know. I am very excited with the price and ready to buy

I found them on backorder at Mouser for $5.07 plus shipping:

http://mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/MSP-EXP430...

TI just got out of prison too.

The specifications of this board detail that it comes with a 32 kHz crystal, but the specifications of the MSP430 micro controller family says that they run at 16 MIPS. Anyone got any details on this? Can the board simply be fitted with a faster crystal? Please, no "it actually executes 500 instructions per clock cycle" jokes.

There's an internal oscillator on the uC.

"32kHz crystal increases MSP430 MCUs’ integrated digitally controlled oscillator to real-time accuracy for various peripherals and timers"

But even running at 32kHz you can do real work, probably even run a MUMPS deployment.

I haven't used any TI processors specifically, but most MCUs that run on a 32kHz crystal will only use that clock speed either in very low power operations, or as a timebase for a real-time (i.e., wall) clock. The processor has PLL circuitry inside it that will multiply the 32kHz into the MHz range and use that as the main CPU clock.

It has an internal clock source that can be multiplied up to different speeds. You can also connect external crystals or digital clocks.

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