>Dear All,
>
>I'm sure this question has been asked by a great deal of people...
>
>I've just started writing my thesis for the project and it would be awful
>handy to know what 'PIC' actually meant. Is it an acronym? What does it
>mean? etc. etc.
>
>Can anybody (i.e. Andy Warren or Microchip) help?
>

I've always understood it to mean peripheral interface controller

however, if you say pic to most people they associate it with the 8259A -
this is a programmable interrupt controller and is part of the PC
architecture

hence the possibility of confusion

cheers - Steve