PIC Freeware / Beginner's Info

[John Speth]

Limited C capabilities is typical in embedded controller C compilers for a
variety of reasons, some technical and some otherwise.  And the run-time
library has very limited use in embedded apps.  I've had the best results
using C like this: Start the project with all C code and code some C
callable functions in asm for reasons of speed or I/O necessity.  Build the
framework in C and as you learn about the bottlenecks that inefficient C
code causes, you can address them using asm code.  There are many coding
tricks to make C efficient but you have to know something about how it
generates asm code.  You'll find yourself continually checking the asm
output for efficiancy checks.

John Speth
Object Engineering, Inc
mailto:johns at oei.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl
> [mailto:owner-synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl]On Behalf Of Jeremy Brookes
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 1998 7:26 AM
> To: Synth DIY
> Subject: Re: PIC Freeware / Beginner's Info
>
>
> >One need not write only assembly language with these chips.  A low cost
> >($100) C programmer can be found at http://www.cssinfo.com/picc.html or
> >the same can be bought from ITU.  It can be used directly with the PIC
>
>
> My experience of a C language for the PIC was very disappointing - only
> integer arithmetic, very limited subset of C commands, few
> libraries. Why be
> afraid of assembly language?! It's not as if there are a lot of commands.
> I've done some code for them which received serial data and controlled IO
> pins accordingly - not too different to MIDI applications (which
> I intend to
> get round to soon).
>
>