Re: PIC Assembler.


"ian field" <dai.ode@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:V_2Ti.20084$0z6.19665@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Does anyone have a link to any tutorials for PIC assembly?

Over the past few months I've been trying many permutations of Google
search string, but most of the tutorials I've found assume previous
experience at writing assy for microprocessors.

Another problem is most of what I've found is HTML which is untidy to save
for later study and many pages lose their image files after being saved to
disk (anyone know why that happens?). Any help appreciated.

TIA.
Ian,

Try these. Some are better than others and some have mistakes - but, you'll
be able to spot those within a short time.

http://www.mikroe.com/en/books/picbook/picbook.htm
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk/pic_tutorial.htm
http://www.mstracey.btinternet.co.uk/pictutorial/picmain.htm

Saving these to your hard drive can be done with a right-click and save as.
It creates two files, one is the html document and the other is a file
folder with the graphics. At least, it does on my Windoz machine.

In a later post, someone also recommended the PIC Elmer 160 tutorial. That
is a good one and each of the lessons downloads as a PDF.

Also, if you haven't already, download the data*** for the PIC you are
using (www.microchip.com) and, if a 16F device, download the mid-range
user's guide, as well. Lots of necessary information in those documents.

As you have discovered, there are lots of books out there on the subject. It
really depends on where you want to go with this and how much money you want
to spend. Each book I have purchased has both strong and weak points. On
thing they all have in common is that none of them had everything I wanted
to know and all of them needed to be used with the datasheets and mid-range
user's guide for full understanding. The bottom line is that you may want to
concentrate on the free stuff for awhile until you figure out if you want to
concentrate on robotics, embedded systems, just making LEDs flash, or
designing the "next best thing".

Don't worry too much about the flame wars regarding assembly vs. C vs basic
vs whatever. Start out where you are comfortable and where you can find the
most information that will help you figure out how to get some use out of
these microcontrollers. Later, if you feel like it, play with the other
programming languages.

Are you using Microchip MPLAB and a development envirionment/simulator? If
not, I recommend downloading it from the Microchip site (it is free). I
don't know if it will work with your programmer, but you should be able to
use it to build your files, then use the hex code for your programmer.

Finally, you'll find that Microchip will sample chips to hobbyists. Check
that out on their site. These are free samples and, at least to U.S.
addresses, have been shipped without cost (though I don't imagine that will
continue forever). Someone mentioned the 16F88 as an upgrade 16F84A. I agree
it is a good one to start with. The internal oscillator saves a couple of
I/O pins (and a few parts) and the analog inputs are available if you don't
want to stick with just digital. Also, larger memory.

Above all, have fun learning!

Best of luck,
Richard




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