I was annoyed that Microchip didn’t make their tutorials easily accessible from their top-level site navigation bar. It took Google indexing from outside the site to point me in the right direction. Once I knew these things existed, though, it was time to get to work.
Like most of the Microchip site, the target audience is not the complete novice. This tutorial gives an overview of the features of their PIC16F1 series using vocabulary that would be understandable for people already well-versed in the field. For example, the first section explains these PIC chips are Harvard architecture designs. This was presented without explanation, footnote, or link to Wikipedia explaining what Harvard architecture was. (Hint: It has nothing to do with style of buildings on the Harvard University campus.) The target audience for this tutorial would already know what that meant.
Many years ago I dipped my toes in learning the Ubicom/Parallax SX line of micro controllers. They were competing with PIC micro controllers in some markets and share some design similarities including the Harvard architecture. At the time, I chose to experiment with the SX line because it was promoted by Parallax. Their big hit BASIC Stamp product line caters to absolute beginners and a few BASIC Stamp were created with a SX chip at its heart. Parallax offered the SX chip itself for the more advanced users. The product line was backed by documentation written by the same crew that knew how to write for novices.
Unfortunately the SX product line never found the same success PIC did. So it has since been discontinued. The little bits and pieces I still remember from the experience helps me understand PIC today. Even with that help, I’m not quite up to the level expected by the author of the Microchip PIC tutorial, which meant a lot of Google side trips to understand the various topics.
One place the SX differ significantly from PIC was the implementation intent. The SX put their focus on software: The chips were simple but designed to run at significantly higher clock speeds (75 MHz) compared to their contemporary PIC counterparts (typically 1-4 MHz). This allows the SX to implement a large range of functionality strictly in software, reducing the need for peripherals.
In contrast, PIC controllers – especially the ones today – is less focused on the code running on the core chip and more focus on having that code orchestrate peripherals to do the actual work. The deep product line offers PIC chips with varying set of peripherals to suit different goals. It can get bewildering but since I already have a specific PIC in hand, I can stay focused on the subset of peripherals on this PIC16F18345 chip.
Normally, micro controller programs are written on a PC and compiled into binary code that is loaded onto the chip via a device generically called “
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