PIC programming...

I've been wanting to learn to use PICs, but I haven't a clue as to which programmer to get, what books and other resources to read or even what chips I should be looking at... Google spits out a ton of results, and I am genuinely overwhelmed. I only want to make some noise and flash some lights, so I don't want to spend too much money on a programmer (<$100)...

Does anyone here know about PICs? Can someone please hold my hand through getting a programmer, some chips and some books?

Thank you!

Peace,
Al.

nope.. but I want to learn Atmel micros but find the same problems. STACKS(no pun intended..) of information for programmers but none for novices/noobs. I get the general structure but not where to begin. I have the programmer at work and can easily use it but the code is just losing me.

Have you been to http://www.ucapps.de/

It's a midi-box oriented site and they have a DIY programmer IIRC.

EDIT: Yes, in the left menu under PIC Burner

yes i've seen that but I need something even MORE simple.. :?

Yeah, those Atmel (ATMega?) chips look cool! Man, I can do OOP in C++ and 4Test like nothing, and whenever I look at assembly it looks so easy... but I just have no idea where to start! I got a cool PDF online that gives you a good rundown of the basics, but it's still not enough...

By the way, sorry for putting this in The Lab... Someone please move it to The Brewery? thanks!

Peace,
Al.

PS: I'm typing this on my wife's brand-spanking-new MacBook Pro... IT KICKS ASS!!!

there is a software called proteus , on it you can simulate the circuit and test your software(.hex file)(you still need mplab).
it have a lot of perifericals even a virtual ide port. :shock:
you can put lcds , motors , serial ports, etc. and play with it on realtime.

maybe you can download a demo vertion.
http://www.labcenter.co.uk/index.html?/products/advancedsim.htm

You could start with this: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en010053
It's cheap and you can start with simple programs like make the LEDs blinking. It includes a complete IDE. You can flash the pic direct inside the IDE. If you have ever programmed in assembler it's very easy.

Have you checked jal? A very simple and user-friendly language for pics. I programmed my pics using the ucapps-programmer (the old jdm one) and it works like a charm!

jal-info

When I was studying PIC programming for my college course I found this page very useful for basic programming techniques & PIC idiosyncracies.

http://www.mstracey.btinternet.co.uk/pictutorial/picmain.htm

there is also the PICmicro Web Ring here:
http://o.webring.com/hub?ring=picmicro

Thanks for the links, guys! It's looking more and more like I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get a programmer and start futzing around...

I was looking at this development kit for the Atmel chips. Any experiences or comments?

Peace,
Al.

TI now has a $20 development kit (USB) for it's MSP430 Micro. Nice little device too. (if I do say so myself... )

check it out here:
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/ez430tool/index.htm?DCMP=430Day&HQS=Other+OT+ez430

Just found this site, with a lot of helpful articles for the Atmel chips, including a couple of begginers articles, and a MIDI AVR programming article by Paul Maddox himself!

I'm buying Atmel's development board... will keep you all posted if I make something cool.

Peace,
Al.

where are you getting the board and how much? is the the 500 series board?

Things are getting better with the pics.
I have a couple of books, Easy Pic'n and Pic'n up the Pace. But Microchip keeps coming out with cooler chips every month, so obsoletness is chasing you the whole time.

Sometimes a bigger chip is easier to work with, like 40 pin 18F45. A longer header, but you can multiply 2 times two without 1000 lines of "hammer and chisel" coding. The internal archetecture has been improved.

The 16C71 is dirt cheap and fun to work with.

Microchip has a compiler for the 18F I believe. It dose not do everything, but a lot easier than building a C compiler. You will need a chip burner and if you do not want to spend 5 bucks a pop for every debug you do, you should get some erasable chips. No wait, I think they have done away with th UV erasable technology and gone to flash or something. This means an easy EE type of clearing, halaluyah!

You got in on this at the perfect iome.
5 years ago, and it's off the bridge.

OT:

I was just at Radio Shack and noticed for $39.95 you can get a cool bread borad type deal that has it's own pwr supply, speaker, LED's all kinds of neat things all on the same chunk of plastic so ypou new guys, if you need a learning tool, thats the bunny.

all of those are great ideas but IF i start to learn something I would like to put all efforts into learning everything about that one IC, not hopping around to many different kinds. I know you learn less overall but you learn more about the one that you stick with.

I would like to learn the atmega series as I work with atmega8535s a lot, but I just don't know anything about coding. I already have a platform for programming i just need to learn how to code.

:?

Physical computing http://itp.nyu.edu/~dbo3/physical/physical.html is a great book to sort out ideas about using the PIC as an interface. There are
program examples etc . I just entered into this area also and bought a PIC
programmer off ebay and used some available code for programming.

here's some interesting stuff as well:

Spider Room Labs

especially for midi-projects, but i guess these are good to learn things anyway.

Man, thanks for all the links, guys!

Svart, I got the STK500 board from Digikey ($79) plus a couple of ATMega16 chips... Let's see what happens. I absolutely agree with the "learn as much as you can about this one specific thing" approach (have you seen my inductor winding thread?)... :wink:

Peace,
Al.

Was it in here and was it svart who cautioned about using PICs sometimes for critical control functions in realtime apps, because of some crazy initial condition glitches?

I have steered clear of micro programming, preferring to leave it to experts (and I have a friend who is very very good indeed), and wanting to not be the pacing item for every bit of hardware on projects. But now and again I hear the siren song and am tempted.

When my friend and I hacked out a very intricate design with an elaborate (for a powered speaker system anyway) control surface on the right satellite, we used two PICs---iirc 16C621 parts, with extensive command, power and speaker/headphone signals all travelling on a total of four wires (some of the details of that system are in patent purgatory right now in fact).

Despite flagrant violation of one of management's prime directives, namely "No Invention on the Critical Path", everything worked like a charm, almost miraculously, but flux contamination of some units' teeny TSSOP package parts in the sats caused the clock oscillator to get biased into a region of low gain, until the machine was on for a few minutes. Not good.

While we were all trying to figure out what was going on, the Chinese subcontractor making them did some of their own research, and discovered that the crystal required a negative resistance to oscillate, and wondered where they could purchase negative resistors :razz: