PIC Microcontrollers

[Brendan]

You have direct pin control, how much lower are you wanting? Toss the Arduino libraries and build your own?

For me, I would like to understand the nuts-and-bolts of the ATmega platform...the Arduino environment / eco-system makes development very easy...but there is such a huge abstraction layer between the code and the chip, that can muddy the waters...for example, I was using the canned "FastLED" library, and was also trying to use interrupt-driven serial communications...it was falling down hard...and I finally figured out the FastLED library disables all interrupts to be able to bit-bang the "spi-ish" protocol at the right speed.

I do like the ease of development that Arduino brings...don't get me wrong...just like I loved PICAXE to learn PIC microcontrollers.

I've also built up circuits around ATMega328P controllers (QFP and DIP) and had success writing the Arduino bootloader to the raw chips (using another Arduino).

I think in my spare time, I might see what's involved in tweaking the bootloader for the ATMega328P to allow for operation using a 20MHZ resonator, vs. the 16MHZ that is the legacy Arduino standard...(Although, this might also mess up some timing / communication features as well...hard to say, again, due to the abstraction layer).

Still, getting another ~4 million instructions per second would be nice!