gnupic: Newbie help
Subject:
Re: Newbie help
From:
Scott Dattalo ####@####.####
Date:
24 Nov 2001 16:47:58 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0111240833340.18820-100000@ruckus.brouhaha.com>
On Sat, 24 Nov 2001, Byron A Jeff wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> > I'm a complete newbie to all this PIC stuff. I would like to buy a decent PIC
> > programmer. I can get PICSTART PLUS for £100 (~$160, I think). I have also seen
> > something called EPIC, which does not seem to program all of microchip's stuff.
> > I wouldn't want to have to buy another programmer, as I don't have much cash.
>
> Well let me interject here. You may be approaching this from a difficult
> angle. Instead of investing significant money so that you can ensure that you
> can program every conceivable part, try the approach of starting with one or
> two types of parts and a simple programmer for them. Then you can make an
> informed decision about when to upgrade.
>
> In that vein let me offer my Trivial LVP programmer. It has exactly 2 parts
> and costs less than £2 (I always wanted to use a pound symbol in a post ;-)
> Coupled with gpasm, gpsim, and picprg2.3b (which can be found on my page with
> the programmer), One can quickly and cheaply put together a development system
> for the 16F62X and 16F87X parts.
>
> My site is http://www.finitesite.com/d3jsys
BAJ's suggestion is perfectly reasonable. Once you've decided that you
really are going to spend some serious time with PICs, it wouldn't hurt
getting a PicStart+. The benefit is that a PicStart+ is Microchip blessed
and supports (nearly ?) all processors. I have one and it works well with
Andrew Pines' Linux driver.
>
> > Anyway, PICSTART PLUS seems to have lots of useful software, which should last
> > me until linux does absolutely everything to do with pics (gpsim seems a bit
> > strange to use. I think I'll wait to a higher version number...).
:).
Ralf and I (the primary gpsim developers) are engineers as is clearly
manifested in the gpsim user interface. Before Ralf fixed the gui, gpsim
was exceptionally obscure! Ralf has done some brilliant work in making
gpsim usable. You oughta see the yet-to-be-relaced C source browser. If
you have any UI suggestions though, then please let us know.
----
Incidently, in the last 6 months or so I've noticed more and more
questions similar to Charlie's. I think it's great because it's a
testament to the fact that PIC development is becoming more and more
popular.
My advice to Charlie and all you other new commers to PIC/Linux: hang in
there! If you have a question don't hesitate to ask. If you feel
uncomfortable posting to the list, then e-mail me directly.
Scott
