|
|
|
I don't intend to make a comprehensive getting started page, but just to advise those who would like to start to use microcontrollers how to do that in the simplest possible way. You don't need any special equipment and conditions, just you have to wish to try. Why PIC16F84 beside plenty of other better and worse microcontrollers? At first place, with PIC16F84 you are on the road immediately. You can download the original Microchip's development software MPLAB for free. Or you can just download assembler MPASM if you don't need other parts. Then, everyone who knows difference between resistor and capacitor can make tiny programmer for literally a couple of bucks and download software for programmer for free. Finally, PIC16F84 has very advanced architecture and a reasonable price. Some of its characteristics are:
PIC16F84 has Harvard architecture, what means that it has separate memory for program and data, unlike usual Von Neumann's architecture in which data and program code share same memory space. Additionaly, data and program bus are of different width. PIC16F84 is RISC processor with set of just 35 instructions which are very easy to learn. Each instruction of program code is executed in one instruction cycle, except for branch instructions, thanks to pipelining and overlaping of fetch and execute phases. Very comprehensive documentation on this microcontroller, as well as all the others manufactured by Microchip, you can find at http://www.microchip.com. At the same URL you can find MPLAB IDE for Microchip's controllers and assembler, both fully free for download. In Favorites you can find links on very good (and free for PIC16F84) C compiler whose author Pavel Baranov, as well as some other interesting links related to this controller. You can look at my articles from "Radio T9" magazine (in Bosnian language only).
|
|
Mail to: [email protected] This site was last updated on 11/18/00. You are visitor number
|
