[NLRS] Good Book on PICs?

[Chris Elmquist]

On Thursday (12/11/2008 at 11:22PM +0000), Scott wrote:
>
> Well, I'm done with RF for a while and looking for a new 
> challenge...learning how to use PICs.  The elctronics isn't scary and I did 
> learn machine language programming for the Intel 8085 and 8086 as well as 
> the Zilog Z80 CPUs, so I'm not afraid of that either.  Does anyone have a 
> good book in mind that covers the basics of PICs?

My opinion is that the best resources are on the web.  You will find
zillions of projects people have done with PICs and they are usually
really well documented.  Many teachers and professors use them in their
course work and those can be found online too.  The Microchip datasheets
are all there at http://www.microchip.com as well as free development
tools if you choose to program them in assembly.

I did PIC stuff for years but then I got more excited about Atmel's
AVR microcontrollers.  I'd encourage you to consider those as well.
The advantage is that you can then also use the free GNU C compiler
toolchain and do some really nice things quickly by programming in C.
The TI MSP430 family would also fit this bill as they too are supported by
the GNU toolchain.  The PIC is not due to its fairly unique architecture.
You can however find other C and BASIC development tools for the PIC
which you can purchase.

I recommend development boards from these guys,

http://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html

which you can also purchase here,

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php

Also, if you chose to follow the AVR path, then a very popular project
these days is Arduino,

http://www.arduino.cc/

which is an Italian project to develop a simple platform that students
could use to build computer capability into robots, toys, whatever.
There are now many clones of the Arduino boards, many of which are available
from the Sparkfun outfit I referenced above.

Fun stuff.  73, Chris NØJCF

-- 
Chris Elmquist
mailto:chrise at pobox.com