Hello,
I am learning to use & program the MSP430G2 microcontroller from Texas Instruments, so I thought I could write down my notes here as I am planning to use them for reference in the future, plus they might prove useful to others.
For this last reason I will add some background information, to make my minutes usable by others willing to learn.Basic ConceptsYou should be familiar with teh concept of what a microcontroller is, if not you should check here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller

To put it plain simple a microcontroller is a microprocessor to which a number of different peripherals were added.
Each model has it’s own mix of peripherals, providing different functionality, however the main “building blocks” you can expect to find are :

1. Flash memory to store the code that will be executed
2. RAM to store variables needed by your program
3. Clock Systems : one or more are provided to service the CPU and it’s peripherals. ome may use external crystals, some others might be “self contained”
4. Timers to count delays, activate something periodically etc
5. A Watchdog : a special timer that monitors the status of the code execution and resets the MCU if it appears “stuck”
6. Serial communication (typically TTL UARTS, SPI, I2C)
7. GPIO (General Purpose Inpu Ouutput) : allows to write or read digital signals
8. ADC (Analogic To Digital Converter) : commonly a 10bit ADC to read analogic inputs, usually from sensors (temperature, voltage, current etc..)
9. PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) : used to dim lights, drive electric motors etc..
10. ….