Arduino captures MSP-430

So many years ago, centuries in computer years', I went with the MSP-430 because the $20 USB and detachable daughter board made sense for my projects. But data logging and communications was so 1990s. Still the price was right and THEN I had this propeller controller come up.

In the past, I would stop by the last electronics store for any 'glue' logic and go to town BUT they closed the end of January. I would have to order online and wait. As I was getting my parts together, I noticed one important part was also sold by an Arduino seller and I took a second look:

• the 'glue' logic is already on the Arduino boards
• well documented SD card interface
• ADC enough for my purposes (the Raspberry Pi lacks ADC)
• PWM enough for my purposes
• reasonable power and form factor

So I went by Barnes and Noble and bought $90 in casual reading. Saturday, I'll sketch out my plan and order the nanos. Next week coding, integration and test. The only fly is I am not so happy with just two standard interrupt lines and the unknown, interrupt blocking state of the libraries. The bane of realtime software are undocumented library routines that block interrupts.

Bob Wilson

ps. I had laid out a custom, cruise control for our NHW11 but the overhead of the glue made it one of those 'Git around to it' tasks. Now it is much more practical.