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Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

Can you advice on how can one get started in embedded programming? What are the barriers, talking the cost and hardware to begin. I can't think of much of a real project that I would be fond of making but even a set of blinking lights would be an achievement for me.

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I've also just started learning hardware development in my spare time. It's a very different challenge than software, and I'm already having a ton of fun with it. To get started, I'd recommend taking a look at this tutorial: http://www.newbiehack.com/MicrocontrollerTutorial.aspx

I also work with a guy who has been hacking hardware since the vacuum tube days, and has built his own computer literally from the ground up. He's an amazing resource, so I got really lucky.

As for barriers, I got started for less than $60. I bought an MCU, breadboard, programmer, iron, some LEDs and other components and started messing around. I haven't put together a PCB yet, because I want to make sure I've got everything right. Like the article says, the real world is unforgiving. I don't want to dump $50 on having a board etched and then find out I messed up the design.

I don't think you will need to go the PCB level work right now. You can do a good deal of work on the bread board. And for things which are a little complicated, building reusable modules and learning how to solder a little quickly, works most of the times.

Just checked your profile, nice to know you are from Jaipur. The easiest way is to start with a Arduino, the other ones are PIC or MSP430.

With MSP430 you have a launch pad board, And as far as I know your local electronics market will for dead sure have PIC starter boards. They should not cost anything more than 800 rupees. If you are going with PIC, you will get a free IDE from Microchip(MPLABX) and tons on free examples online. So on that end you won't have much problems.

So using PIC should be the easiest way to get you started. If you are in Bangalore, there are two shops at the end of SP road(nsk electronics and sri lakshmi electronics) which stock eval boards for PIC and MSP430. They will also have every thing you need to get started and to move to an intermediate level as they primary stock parts which students use for college projects.

You will also need some resistors, led's, and probably a USB to serial converter cable. Take time to study the PIC tutorial online. The best place to start is this.

http://embedded-lab.com/

Tutorials at : http://embedded-lab.com/blog/?page_id=26

You can work through the hard ware and software examples. It will require both patience and a bit of 'persistence' to get through them. But with time you will only get better.

As for the cost the net will not be more than say 1500 rupees. Which is pretty cheap for what you will learn.

As with these things, going with a little research helps, spend 3-4 days going through tutorial to what parts and in what quantities you need to buy so that you don't have to go there again and again.

I went the MSP430 route, it was essentially free (from memory about US$5 incl postage). If you are on a very tight budget, this might be better. There are a ton of free tutorials, forums, development tools available. The caveat is that setting up the dev environment in Linux is not that easy, whereas for Windows it is essentially plug-n-play.

BTW, Texas Instruments has recently upgraded the MSP430 to 128K.

An Arduino kit is a good starting point. You can get some starter kits with excellent tutorials for $50 or less.

Arduino gets you quickly up and running, without spending days fiddling with compilers and settings just to get something working.

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