Choosing a Microcontroller Brand

This should not be about "which on is better",  I am ok with PIC, AVR, or ARM.  I am just wanting to pick on set, and stick with them.  I do not wish to continue with Arduino because I feel it misleads me and after a while short of getting start, it actually promotes ignorance.  This is like Visual Basic, while it is useful you are losing so much and end up being ignorant of the things that matter in the end.

I dealt with a Pic32 recently and it has its own personality, and it has some quirks with I2C.  I resolved it and learned but iv I move to ARM, I may have to relearn things and also solve new problems.  I want to avoid this overhead and become proficient, even at the assembly level, one of set of chips.  I want to have a range to pick from, and as long as there is a big enough chip to work with OR a breakout board, I can live with it.  If all they sell is a small SMD chip I may not be able to use it, that would defeat the purpose.

I am really leaning towards ARM but I like how PIC and AVR sell DIP versions of the chips where I can use ZIF sockets.  NOt the smallest but easy to work with!

I do not wish to continue with Arduino because I feel it misleads me and after a while short of getting start, it actually promotes ignorance.

First of all I think that you have perfectly focused the point with this sentence. We have already discussed about time ago and this is the better definition I have read until now.

Then, what I tried to write above about the problem os very small chip and so on, is just what you saying: what I mean is that if by one side it is great to use high performance devices, I tend too to prefer to work with components that I can really manage in projects and circuits and at the actual date in a global scenario the dip devices remain the ones that I can really manage in a better way. I recognise that this maybe a handicap, but untile there are projects that needs micro controllers and are simpmle or don't need super speeds nor micro dimensions this choice remain the better choice at all.

In a global view, Joey, I remain of the idea that it is better for you to focus the attention on some different options to make a set of scalable choices depending on the project complexity.

Instead what remain obscure to me, more than the need to use different IDE (but it is not so in many cases with different processors), is the cost of the firmware flashing / programming tools respect the micro controllers themselves, as in the example I posted above where PSoC cost 4$ while I see that the programmer costs 90$ instead. This is also another detail that can address through a solution instead of another.

Enrico

J-Link EDU costs ~ 50 €. It is a jtag programmer / debugger you can use for almost all MCUs. So this is an investment which lasts for long even if you decide to switch from one vendor to an other and even if you decide to work with an other architecture.

8.08.90 J-LINK EDU - SEGGER - EMULATOR, J-LINK EDU | Deutschland

This discussion seems to me a sort of competition to demonstrate something

I mena, it is not the case to make too much simplifications. I have one of the JTag from Segger, one smaller and a couple of other programmers. Luckily in most of the cases these investments has been part of the clients development costs, but things are not so simple. If you want to program and work on your project, the better is that you have not hundred of issues depending from other external factors. I only saw the segger JTag working fine from linux command line. Debug sessions are long to setup. especially if you try experimenting or working on different processors. Nordic is the only one that also recommend the JTAG for debugging only. The advantage of the specific programmers (e.g. the MKII for the AVR series instead of the Nordig programmer etc.) is that from the ide, where you see the code, syntax coloured, breakpoint, emulation, fast and reliable help online and so on, not last including a number of useful libraries from the producer, you need - unfortunately - their specific programmer in most of the cases.

Instead if your game is not to develop something specific but to play with the features of the processor (but it seems that it is not the case) any way to make tests is good.

Enrico.

This discussion seems to me a sort of competition to demonstrate something

No, I am not into sales.

But frankly I decided that I want to develop with ARM (Cortex M* especially) and there has been no argument for an other architecture I could not counter with an ARM device. MSP has low power? ARM is within a few percent points. 8-Bit uses less RAM? Thumb is the answer. And so on. Of course if you are experienced in one architecture it is hard to switch. But if you start from scratch I see no reason choosing something other than ARM. But that's my opinion which I am offering here for evaluation.

I have not considered this option at all... I think the no one of use here is into sales.

I agree with this, but I think - as fas as my personal experience teach me - that this concept is working only for periods. When all seems perfectly working, the choices has been done and you say ok, now I have the good platform to make all ... A stupid post somewhere start alerting your that there is a sort of new tehcnology or new stuff or something that until that moment was impossible to propose seems now affordable ... So the restarting is to take in account. Always.

oh that's so true!

but that's the nature of IT. We try to stick with something while the world keeps turning.

Is the "thumb" and STM device?  Can you post a link?

Is the "thumb" and STM device?  Can you post a link?

Its for ARM cores: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Thumb