PIC Chip Programming 1

[nornrich]

I am looking for a good website that gives the fundamentals for programming PIC microcontrollers. Any sites you can point me to would be appreciated.

Rich...

Richard Nornhold, PE
nornrich@redrose.net

 

[RAMConsult]

Google yields many sites, try

http://www.microchip.com

and

http://www.tinaja.com/picup01.html

for starters.

 

[richs]

Hi Rich-

If you are looking for an inexpensive programmer, I strongly suggest the Ottawa Robotics Enthusiasts version of a pic programmer. This uses the parallel port of a PC and is extremely easy to build.

The programmer uses the Dontronics software and their instructions are quite easy to read and set up the software with. The site in question can be found at:

http://www.ottawarobotics.org/articles/picprog/picprog.html

I am quite happy with the one that I built.

As far as tutorials go, I kinda like Nigel's tutorial on the PIC processor. He has some nice easy examples, however, I find that a standard push in the wires prototype board works quite well instead. You can find them at Radio Shack for under $20.00 and much less at some mail order electronics catalog stores.

Nigel's tutorials are good "hands on" types of examples that get you started and allow you to play around easily with some simple I/O. The URL is:

http://www.winpicprog.co.uk/pic_tutorial.htm

Of couse, the MPLAB available from microchip.com is a must. It is a free download.

It all runs under windows and downloads to the little pic programmer.

It' a fun little chip. Enjoy!

 

[rickcappels]

Now if you were interested in the AVR, you could try

http://www.avrfreaks.net

All the stuff you need to get started in one place, including a forum where you can ask questions.

There are also tons of stuff on the web for the PIC, but if your mind isn't made up yet, you might want to give AVR a try (I am in no way connected with Atmel).

Rick

 

[challenger73]

I agree with Rick. Atmel AVR is an easy chip to learn to program. Only 1 drawback that I had while programming my project... It uses RISC (reduced instruction set code) which does not have many commands that you may be used to. This only means you might need to get creative. I feel that AVR is best bang for the buck.

Adam

 

[SixTwelve]

Electronics Goldmine has some good deals on the proto-boards richs mentioned. At least according to the catalog I recieved a few days ago.

So long as the uController comparisons are coming out, anyone tried the OOPic? This is just a marketing gimmick for a 16F84 compiler, right? Granted, physical objects seem a natural marriage with OO.

Regards,
Thomas

 

[skills]

Ditto on the AVR pieces, and by the way, Both PIC and AVR are RISC and have few instructions.

 

[vijaymk]

hi Rich....
I have this one for you...

http://www.myke.com/elcheapo.htm

this one really works...and it's free....
it has got an inbuilt programmer troubleshooting section too..Will be quite useful if you are new to electronics...

 

[tombihn]

I highly recommend joining the Yahoo! group Piclist, where PICmicros are the main topic discussed. (

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piclist/)

For a wealth of information on PICmicro's:

http://www.piclist.com/

Here is a good website for starting with pics:

http://www.voti.nl/swp/

Hope these help anyone reading this post in the future.

 

[amptramp]

Once you are familiar with PIC's, Microchip's website has a slew of application notes that may help you be "creative".

 

[killabyte]

motorola offers versatile microcontroller units, that allow to expand ur posibilities, anyway you can program it in c, c++, java... using some programs like codewarrior from metrowerks, easy to use, and most of all, REALLY POWERFULL, if you want to use assembler, check pemicro.com, you can download the software for free.

ive used motorola a lot and ive found a good product there. check motorola.com and have a lok at semiconductors.

regards

killa

 

[bubulindo]

I've used both PIC and AVR and my advice to you is to use AVR. They are both RISC, but AVR is quite cheap and faster!

There's another thing that makes AVR beter that is the In System Programming. With it you don't have to disconnect your chip from the circuit, you just connect the programmer there and that's it!



Best regards, Carlos Cardoso

 

[buzzp]

bubulindo,
FYI
PIC chips offer in circuit programming as well.

 

[zeitghost]

And PIC has quite the most horrid assembly language syntax I've ever seen.

rgds Zeit.

 

[buzzp]

Well it depends on what your used too. I, for one, am used to it so it makes sense to me. I would likely feel the same about AVR's assembly that you feel about Microchip.
So what clock speeds can AVR run at? (assume I want 3 10bit A/D converters in an 8pin DIP package). I do not care about memory at this point or additional features, I just want an idea of the what is meant by faster. The same chip from microchip can run at 20MHz (depending on the clock source). Maybe you referring to the cycle time?

 

[Madcow]

This is a cool kit for about $35

http://www.microchip.com/1010/pline/tools/picmicro/demo/pickit/index.htm

As far as horrid assembly language none of the new stuff
compares to the UYK 20 by Sperry Univac. We even had to toggle in each byte by hand.After that no assemly language
ever seemed difficult.

Good Luck

 

[skills]

With respect to the question above concerning clock speed.
An Avr clocked @ 6mhz will will @ speed with a PIC @ 12mhz because its cpu executes an instruction PER clock cycle instead of doing the divide/ 2 that PICs do. So, for all practical purposes, the AVR is about twice as fast as a PIC at the same clock speed. The instruction set itself seems to be more efficient for C and Basic compilers because the instruction set was designed and 'Honed' to maximize the 'typical' C compiler's efficiency.

Yes, the AVR assembly is much more straightforward than
the bss and bsc stuff that PIC has goin. The tools available to develop with AVR look like they're much more
mature than PIC's, which is why I use them!

 

[zeitghost]

MadCow, I remember toggling bootstraps into the front panel of General Automation Spec16.

For so few instructions it took an awfully long time to get it right!

I just hate the syntax of Microchip PIC.

I've used a PICalike from Holtek that has the same machine code, but in my opinion the Holtek assembler mnemonics were much easier to understand.

rgds
Zeit.

 

[VolkerR]

For unknown reasons there is no cheap "5 wire to printerport" programmer for PICs, even though the newer Flash ones (PIC16F, PIC18F) do have a low-voltage programming mode that would permit it.

For AVRs there is one here:

http://www.qsl.net/ba1fb/avrisp.gif

It works excellent and is supported by CodeVision AVR C, ICCAVR, and PonyProg.

I agree that the AVR assembly language and processor structure is lightyears ahead of PICs. Unfortunately, most of the time there is just the "one" PIC that exactly fits your application, with exactly the right pincount and peripherals.

I don't think a homemade PIC programmer is worth spending the time, you can get one for below CAN$80:

http://www.hvwtech.com/pages/products1a.asp?CatID=4&SubCatID=16

http://www.dontronics.com/index.html

 

[cbarn24050]

Hi, there is a ISR/Socket programmer from Quasar with USB and serial port for around half that price. I can't put my hands on the web address but it should be easy to find, I managed it.