The quantities on this particular device will only be about 500-1000
per year by my estimate. My pricing for comparison and budgetary
purposes is to basically use Digi-Key prices for all components but
the microcontroller. The PIC16C54 RC version was quoted by Future
as $3.57ea in 100 quantities. The XT version was about 0.20 more.

There's some method to my madness in using Digi-Key's prices; I know
they are not necessarily the cheapest when you work with larger
quantities but I've found in the past that by using their prices as
a starting place and buying elsewhere changes and/or small additions
tend to be "covered" without having to go back to the customer with
price increases.

The difference in cost between an RC PIC with timing components and
an XT part with crystal and caps won't kill the product but every
little bit helps.

I have another 16C54 question as well. Since the '54 doesn't have
an interrupt for the RTCC what's the usual procedure for running
a given section of code periodically, say every 100mS or so? Can
you run a tight loop waiting for the RTCC to roll over from some
calculated value or will this methos "miss" the rollover if you simply
test for it to be equal to zero?

Please pardon the novice type questions--I spend most o{ my time
with 8051 family systems and am fairly new to the PIC!

Tim McDonough{-- timmed@cencom.net