Wes said:
I want to play with a PIC. Microchip has an inexpensive programmer.
Is this a good item to start with?
http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?CMP=ILC-1c126onlinecatalog&sku=44K0230
Are there PIC's that take analog inputs made by Microchip?
Thanks,
Wes
You don't really need the 8/12/20 pin demo board. It doesn't take the
18 pin PICS of which the most useful is the 16F88. The 16F88 is a great
chip for getting into PIC programming as it is full supported by the
PICKIT 2 *INCLUDING* debugging with no extra emulation headers or
adaptors required. The 16F87 and 88 are the *ONLY* PICs of 20 pins or
under that have full debug support without needing an expensive ICD
header and adaptor. The 16F88 has SPI/I2C, UART, 10 bit 7 channel ADC,
2 comparators, 3 timers and a 256 byte data EEPROM. Its got as much
RAM and program memory as any low end part and more than most.
Other good PICS for getting started with are the 16F886 if you want a 28
pin part and the 16F887 for a 40 pin part. Both are feature rich, with
debug support built in. Just make sure you get PDIP (either 300 or 600
mil) or SPDIP packaged parts if you want to breadboard them.
All are easily breadboardable with the PICKIT2 if you make up a simple
8" cable with a 0.1" 6 pin header plug on one end to fit the connector
on the Pickit 2 and individual pins to plug into the breadboard on the
other. You will save $15 *not* getting the kit with the demo board
which can be well spent on few PICS, a couple of 4Mhz crystals for when
you need a spot-on clock frequency and a strip of 0.1" header pins and
some small bore heatshrink sleeving to make up the cable you will need.
If you INSIST on having a demo board, get the Debug Express kit. It's
demo board has a surface mount 16F887 with a button, a pot for the ADC
and eight LEDs. All pins are brought out to accessable through hole
locations so you can add some turned pin socket strips and patch it into
any project you are breadboarding, space to put a crystal, or resonator
for the clock (though the chip has a pretty good internal oscillator),
space for a 32 KHz crystal for Timer 1 for RTC applications and a
surface mount prototyping area with more than enough space to assemble a
MAX232 or similar level converter if you want an on-board PC compatible
serial interface and two 11 pin + power and ground locations for
headers to get signals in and out from the prototyping area.
