Is there anything similar to a frequently asked questions list
concerning PIC's?  I hear these chips described as reduced instruction set
devices.  As one who has written assembly code for the 6502, 68HC11, and 8086,
what does this actually mean?
        How many instructions per second can the garden-variety PIC's execute?

        It seems that one good possible use for one of these devices would
be to give a second life to a cast-off infrared remote control.  One could
feed the proprietary data stream from the remote to a PIC and program the
PIC to convert this format into ASCII or whatever to allow one to add remote
control capabilities to a project.  In order to do this well, the PIC would
need to have shift and test capabilities and other such bit-wise operations
so that one could build data frames.

        Finally, I saw a project in "QST" magazine which used a PIC1654
as a Morse Code generator.  The device had a clock composed of a RC timing
circuit so that one could vary the speed by changing the R component.  Can
these devices also run off of a crystal or an external timing signal derived
from a crystal?
Thank you for any and all tidbits of information.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ   Stillwater, OK
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group