[sdiy] PIC Programming

[Jay Schwichtenberg]

Ian,

Having done C++ and C programming before you should be OK. Probably the
hardest part will be getting the development environment up and running.
There will be a lot of reading to get up to speed on the chips. Since these
chips are so multipurpose they can become overwhelming but just pick
something and figure out what you need and just learn that.

The 12F and 16F are what I can bit bangers. They operate more on a bit level
than a byte or word level. They do have byte operations. Another thing is
they don't have much of a stack. The 24, 32 and picDsps are more like real
computers with word operations, mult/div in some and a real stack. The
bigger PICs also have more working (vs. dedicated to something) registers to
work with. Bank switching will be something that you'll need to think about
and keep in the back of your mind. You'll be doing that to swap in memory or
peripherals that you will be using. I'll bet to somewhere along the line
you'll slap your head and go oh, those registers are in a bank that I don't
have swapped in.

Lately I've just been using the 24 PICs since cost usually isn't an issue
and I can solder SMD. Plenty of memory, stack, more registers. They're just
easier to work with. Another thing is that with SMD parts I've been using
MicroChips ICD to program and debug the boards I've done. It's a lot easier
than doing the ZIP socket thing. When doing this I reserve the ICD pins
(don't use them for anything else) on the chip and just wire them up to a
RJ11 jack. That way there's no fuss or muss to reprogram or debug the
boards. Just plug in the ICD cable and go.

There are a few free C compilers out there will cover most or the chips. I
haven't used them since I do most of my stuff in assembly language. I
usually want good timing and have IRQ stuff to deal with. So I really can't
comment on those. Couple of things I can think about when using C is it will
take a memory hit and may not get you there if you want all the performance
you can get from the chip.

One thing nice about the PICs is you can find some form of code out there
for about anything and MicroChip has a lot of examples. I've always been
impressed with them for making their development SW free. If I need to make
20 units of something I sure don't want to spend $1000-$5000 for a
development system.

Good luck!
Jay S.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Smith [mailto:taciturn_unquiet at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 6:26 PM
> To: jays at aracnet.com; synth diy
> Subject: RE: [sdiy] PIC Programming
>
>
>
> Hey Jay,
>
> My background in programming is a fairly decent understanding of
> C++ and some dabbling with the Arduino flavor of C.
>
> I ordered the "PIC Programmer: USB connection" from Futurlec:
> http://www.futurlec.com/PIC_Programmer.shtml
>
> and I ordered a pair of PIC 12F509s and a pair of 16F688s
>
> -Ian
>
>
>