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[Reply #15 on:]

Yes, is Google's fault - I'm from Romania.
Working with peripherals and registers can be easy when you understand the mechanism. It was easy for me to (after I saw an example) set a digital pin as output and input (beyond pinMode() and digitalWrite() ) when I tried for the first time an ATmega32/644P after months of PIC programming. No big deal. Only at configuration bits I got toasted   . But only once.

Thanks to mikroElektronika, I can program in C, Pascal, Basic, both types of microcontrollers, and using even the same board layout. So, no problems at all. See my site:
 - ATMEL online only Arduino language for now.
 - Microchip various languages. BTW, bank problem is automatically hidden by many compilers/languages so programmer is not aware of.

Yes, here are PICs with hardware UART and others without (in this case you can use only software serial).
Now Microchip produce a PIC at 16MIPS, with ATmega328 performance but double flash and RAM memory. You can build with it a compatible Arduino/Sanguino board, at hardware level, using the same FTDI chip or using a variant with USB native. But I think you saw already many boards Arduino like which use different micrcontrollers - also here not big deal.

What I'm trying to say is, you must be able to deal with any microcontroller available on your zone, in a similar way or better. Arduino language was chosen because of the huge existing database. And it proved to be a bridge between the worlds.  

[Reply #16 on:]

Arduino 'language' doesn't help at all. I don't see it as feature, just as there's nothing fun about programming pascal! heh..
Now, that's just me. A "clone" that you program transparently on the arduino ide sure has it uses.

The bottomline is avr-gcc vs jal or whatever... from a first impression gcc wins, you can compile c++ for instance. Jal compiles ansi C?
Also that statement that on PIC you often need to get down to asm, true?

Albeit we really should take our hats off for microchip for selling a DIP chip with HW USB, no one mentioned V-USB... which works great.
And doing a lil price research on futurlec, the PIC usb chip was $2 dollars more than a atmega32. (24 i/o - 2 for vusb). Please correct me, there are tons of models and I know nothing about pics...
And there's some libusb-ready fw for those usb enables pics? Something like LUFA?

[Reply #17 on:]

JAL language started as a subset of VHDL language and now it is close to Pascal. No chance to compile C language . But is the best free compiler around here which can fight with commercial ones from equal positions. It is the best for PIC12/16 families and good enough for PIC18 family. Going down to assembler? With a good high level compiler as JAL you don't need to. But if you want, JAL include also assembler. JAL is easy to learn.
The free C variants (we also have C++ for PICs) here are in no way better than JAL in the resulted HEX file.
Unfortunately, and I don't know why, Microchip don't want to release for free his PIC C compilers and I mean the ones with the full optimization. We always wanted to have a GNU C compiler as AVR programmers have.

V-USB is great indeed, it would be great to be ported also for PICs. It can't compare with a HW USB (you obtain with V-USB only 1Mb/s transfer and the HW can do 12Mb/s) but is still great.

It is a little unfair to compare the prices for ATmega328 when it can't be supplied anymore in DIP package - is missing also form two online shops from my country, where I have access. We have plenty of AVRs here - Romania is in Europe .
 
But is not about me. Is about South America and other countries with difficulties in obtaining ATMEL microcontrollers. And when this is happening, an ATmega will be always expensive. If you read the thread from the beginning, you can have a right image about. For them, Pinguino is a nice solution. For others, is fun to play with it and to contribute to a better language compatibility.

[Reply #18 on:]

The free C variants (we also have C++ for PICs) here are in no way better than JAL in the resulted HEX file.

You would still have to learn a new language. Ok, not a big deal and it is knowledge that you rack up, but if you want to develop fast, you may not have time to mess around with the language.

Unfortunately, and I don't know why, Microchip don't want to release for free his PIC C compilers and I mean the ones with the full optimization. We always wanted to have a GNU C compiler as AVR programmers have.

Stop buying their chips... I can guarantee you that if their sales volume dropped because people preferred to use AVR-GCC for free, the C compiler would be given on MPLab. If I remember correctly, the AVR family started after the PICs, so to make the chips more appealing they released the C compiler. I'm doing a bit of guessing here but I'm very likely to be right.

It is a little unfair to compare the prices for ATmega328 when it can't be supplied anymore in DIP package - is missing also form two online shops from my country, where I have access. We have plenty of AVRs here - Romania is in Europe

I just bought a ATmega328P in a DIP package... in Singapore. :\ It is also easily available through Europe.

Now... this is becoming very similar to posts like VHS vs BETA or MAC vs PC or the latest iOS vs Android.

In the end, what matters is that the job gets done. Like I said, the important things about microcontrollers are to know how to configure the registers (fuses, etc) and I learned that on a PIC, and when I moved to 8051 or AVR it was as simple as reading a manual to find out where these registers were. And also knowing Assembly. You don't have to program with it, but knowing it helps when using higher level languages so you can understand how some code is going to be "translated". The rest is not as important.

[Reply #19 on:]

Thanks for the clarification.  I'll stick with avr too.

I don't think 328 aren't made in DIP anymore, otherwise arduino itself would have to be redesigned in the uno.
And it's available in futurlec, I'm buying from there.
Tayda didn't even got`em in the catalog yet, its out of 168 stock..heh
Anyways, the point is, south americans w/o avr access or a) don't have a international c/c b) doesnt know a china e-shop.