I hope I get mine! 
I am just getting a bit more into the H8 now and have been going through the example source code (learn quite a lot that way). The starter kit board has some LEDs on it that can be used as output devices, so I am going to try coding up a simple program to use them to “say hello” so to speak. 
This will also be a good way to see if my io.h file allows me to do things the way I would like to. I also just received my latest LM order, and have some cables that might allow me to connect to whichever I/O pins on the starter kit I want to use. I would use this to bring the hardware I2C or other I/O pins out to my breadboard.
I will post more when I know if all this works or not. 
8-Dale
This is what I have, and I have also registered to hopefully get an H8SX starter kit. I believe the H8SX is currently the big gun of the H8 family, with much more speed, more features, and up to 512K of flash for program storage.
8-Dale
I have not done the “hello world” type program for the stater kit yet, but I have been testing out my io.h file which will allow addressing the I/O pins and registers by the same names as the chip pin outs use. I have been working with a copy of the 7_Blink36077 workspace which is included with the starter kit.
So far, the indications are positive, and I have changed the main program to address the two I/O pins being used as P57 and P65 (as named in my io.h file) instead of the longer names used in iodefine.h and it is working.
I will now move on to adding the I/O control registers to io.h so they may also be accessed by their shorter names. The shorter names are way easier to remember and work with than the iodefine.h names. I am hoping this will make source code much easier to read and understand.
Once I get io.h finished, I will move on to working on a hello world type program of my own, based on what I have learned so far. I hope to eventually do this type of thing for all of the I/O and control registers of the H8/36077, which will be easily upgraded to work for more powerful members of the H8 family. I already have a version io.h that should work for the the H8 that the Atom PRO is based on (but not with the Basic Micro Atom PRO IDE at present), which is a subset of the H8/36077. 
My io.h file is based on the Renesas iodefine.h file that comes with the starter kit. If I stay with the Basic Micro microcontrollers, I am going to try to create an io.h file that will work with the Atom PRO.
8-Dale
HURRAY! I JUST GOT MINE TODAY!!! DIdnt expect to even get one at all. Signed up cause I had nothing to loose, and now look, free mouse/mousepad and free robot board. I think its wireless or something, didnt have much time to see it out of the box that much yet, but it has an FM crystal on it and something that looks like a reciever…
anyways, thanks a lot Linuxguy, you gave some great advice to go for this, and now I gotsa cool new toy to play with over the summer!!!
THANKS!
It is not wireless, sorry. That crystal is the clock for the H8/36077 MCU.
It is a very cool thing, for sure and I am glad I could point you to it. I stilll need to make those pin headers into the 3 pin setups we use. Then we can have a nifty robot controller to play with and programm in C. I will probably be doing more with the starter kit for awhile, since I can not work on W.A.L.T.E.R. right now.
8-Dale
Thats what I want to do. If you can post a small totorial with pics on how you did it, that would be cool.
Speaking of cool new toys, I just got another one from Renesas… I just got a FREE HSX/1664 starter kit. This is the current top of the line H8 series microcontroller. Renesas must like me.
8-Dale
Dale,
I think you might find that programming in C requires lots of RAM. At least to do the cool stuff like recursive functions, dynamic allocation and multitasking. All these require static RAM (as opposed to FLASH or EEPROM). Of course you don’t HAVE to have to do that stuff in C, but being able to do them is one of the advantages.
But seeing how free is FREE, you really can’t beat that!
-Drew
I’ve done quite a bit of ‘C’ programming, and am getting back into it gradually. I just haven’t done any robotics programming in C yet.
The board in this new starter kit doesn’t have any of the headers installed, so I will have to do that before I can actually start experimenting with it. There are advantages to those though, and I can decide which type of headers I want to use.
8-Dale