Philip Martin wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> What was (I think) a good idea has lead me into the realms of Pic
> programming. Thing is, the last time I did any serious programming was
> many years ago in the days of the 4000 series PET (6502 assembly). UK
> available, whats the best book to start the learning process with ?
> I've got the book form MPS "A Beginners Guide" but it does seem to leave
> as many questions unanswered as it answers.

I tried to get a PET in 1978 but had to settle for a TRS-80 as it was
all they would ship me to OZ in the early days. Try
http://www.dontronics.com/easy.html for the Easy PIC'n Beginners guide.

> Next, the reason for this return to programming. What I have decided to
> do is to use an LCD display, 2 * 16 or such like, to display a message
> that would not exceed the number of characters on the display. However,
> dependant upon an input line from another source it would display either
> message A or B. I have seen several lumps of code that would be capable
> of displaying one fixed message but not for changing over to a different
> one.

http://www.dontronics.com/sli.html will give you info on a ready made
display that will auto baud on 100bps to 125K bps. You mean to sense a
pin and display a different message depending on the result? Does the
text of the two messages change?

> Has anyone played with the LCD kit supplied by Magenta Electronics ?
>
> Of course the real problem is that I am beginning to see the potential
> for a number of projects that would benefit from the Pic type
> technology. Hope my MD feels the same way :-)
>
> Philip Martin   email philip@philmart.demon.co.uk
> Royal Quays, North Shields

Don McKenzie  don@dontronics.com   http://www.dontronics.com

SLI, the serial LCD that auto detects baud rates from 100 to 125K bps.
SimmStick(tm) A PIC proto PCB the size of a 30 pin Simm Memory Module.
Covers all versions of the PIC16cxx family plus the Atmel AT89C2051.