Integrated Circuitry Programming

[ecookman]

I am looking into building a flying drone that is computer controlled.
Things I need to know:
How to save a program onto a chip
What programming language to use
Circuit interfacing


Does anyone know of anything that can help me get started?
books, online tutorials...

[TerranceN]

Good luck. Considering you don't know how to program a microcontroller, I think it's safe to assume you do not have much experience creating circuit boards. I would truthfully start on something MUCH smaller, as making a flying drone as a first project is like making 3d video game from scratch in c++ as your first programming project.

Anyway to answer your questions...

To get code onto a microcontroller (this is for PIC microcontrollers, but I figure you will probably pe using them) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIC_microcontroller#Device_Programmers

The programming languages I know there are variations or microcontroller libraries for are Basic, C, and assembly. Which one to use is up to you, but I know at my school we use MBasic, and it seems to get the job done without much annoyance.

What do you mean by circuit interfacing?

Hope that helps, but I don't think I will be able to help much more, as I only know this stuff from taking computer engineering. In that class the most advanced 'robot' we made was pretty much two wheels and some sensors, which we didn't know how it worked, as we were just handed the design and told to build it.

[ecookman]

TerranceN @ Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:50 pm wrote:

I only know this stuff from taking computer engineering. In that class the most advanced 'robot' we made was pretty much two wheels and some sensors, which we didn't know how it worked, as we were just handed the design and told to build it.

I have taken the same class and hoped to do a lot more than getting a motor and turning it on and off and varying the speed through the DB-25. The most complex thing we did was, take a 555 chip, make strobing LED's.

Thanks for the start.

[SNIPERDUDE]

As previously mentioned, I'd look into microcontrollers.

[Homer_simpson]

I know this is kinda late ecookman but i've recently figured out a great deal about this sort of thing if you're still interested about learning where to start.

[Draymire]

If you have links and book recommendations i say post them, i would love to have a look into stuff like this.
If you feel like it an article would be awesome.