> Why is the MicroChip PIC controller so much better than other
> controllers like ATMEL or ZILOG? Is there an application that would be
> better suited to one of the other manufacturers?

        An intrinsic short-coming of most of the PIC range derives from
        their Harvard architecture.

        There is no way for a running program to read the code space of
        the device, so a program can't do a run-time checksum on itself.

        This makes the PIC unsuitable for some so-called 'high reliability'
        applications.

                (The top-end PIC's, the 17Cxx series, _can_ read their
                 program memory and thus do this checksumming.  Indeed,
                 these PIC's can write to, and thus program, their
                 program memory.)

___Bob