The MSP430 contains several families, from the low cost Value family to the most advanced F6xx family. Each family is usually targeted at a set of applications and contains a certain mix of peripherals. In a family, however, devices vary as far as the amount of Flash and RAM available. It is not unusual to
Apr 11, 2025
I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand. – Old Chinese Proverb This tutorial is heavy with practical aspects of using the MSP430, and we hope you can follow the code, try and play with it. But, before we dive into number systems and operations we want to
Apr 11, 2025
Although we are used to the base 10 decimal system for everyday counting, computers operate using a different system that uses only two digits, 1 and 0, to represent numbers. Counting in Binary, however, is quite unnatural for humans to use because even small numbers become long quickly. Using binary to represent numbers can be
Apr 11, 2025
Let’s go back to looking the First Project we created and ran in Chapter 2.
Apr 11, 2025
GPIO stands for General Purpose Input Output and refers to the fact that the pins can support both output and input functionalities. Looking physically at any microcontroller you can readily see rows of pins that allow the microcontroller to control and communicate with outside devices. Lets take a look at the pinout diagram of the
Apr 11, 2025
Clocks are at the heart of synchronous digital systems and processors. CPUs require clocks to run to ensure the orderly fetching and execution of instructions. In PCs, the selection of clock speeds is determined by various factors. Unless you are overclocking, you will never deal with them directly. Microcontrollers, on the other hand, are usually
Apr 11, 2025
Using interrupts makes your MSP430 respond faster and allows the CPU to spend more time processing, as well as take advantage of low power Basics of Interrupts If you don’t have experience programming microcontrollers, interrupts might seem like a thing of the past when IRQ switches needed to be set for cards installed in a computer.
Apr 11, 2025
Physical Interface From a pinout perspective, UART signals only require one line for unidirectional communications, although two are typically used for bi-directional transmit and receive. Being asynchronous, UART signals don’t require any other clock line because the two UART devices agree on a common baud rate, stop, start and data bits. This makes the receiver
Apr 11, 2025
SPI is one of the most common interfaces in Embedded Systems and it is one of the most utilized in the MSP430. Although it requires more pins than UART, its external clock often enables very fast transfers that are more reliable because both ends are synchronized. The MSP430 supports SPI in various modules. Physical Interface
Apr 11, 2025
Preface Although there are many resources dedicated to teaching microcontrollers and the MSP430 in particular, we have always found that they failed to cover the basics, or made too many assumptions that were not valid when transitioning from a computer programming environment. Some seemed to assume you already had years of experience using microcontrollers. While
Apr 11, 2025