On Thu, 6 Nov 1997 15:34:53 -0800 JOSE ANTONIO CHONG LEAL writes: >Hey im reading this book "easy pic'n" it says that for the begginer >its >better to use the TRIS instruction to configure outputs VS inputs, >this >other guy said to me to forget about TRIS, he told me to use bank >swtching, >that TRIS only complicates things, what about you guys, what do you >say????? I believe the Microchip manuals suggest AGAINST using the TRIS instruction, as it is being phased out. It is currently included only for code compatibility with older processors. I've always been a fan of using the smallest set of instructions that will get the job done. Hence, I like the "memory mapped I/O" of the PIC compared to the separate I/O map and separate I/O instructions on some other processors. Further, instead of remembering what bit of what register is used to change banks, I just made a macro called "bank1" and another called "bank0". Simplifies stuff considerably. > >also, what programmer do you guys recommend???, im tempted to buy the >picstart plus, but how about the parallax one?, what assembler is >better? >parallax or microchip?.....the one that i have now its the 16B wich is >really old. ok thanks guys!! >later. > I'm using the complete Microchip package here (MPLAB with assembler and PICMASTER emulator and PRO MATE programmer). I've used the picstart to program a couple chips I don't have PRO MATE sockets for, but almost everything is done on the PRO MATE. I understand the PicStart does not verify the chip over the full Vcc voltage range, so there is a possibility that a bit may not be fully programmed (and they recommend against using the device for production programming). I find the Microchip stuff quite satisfactory (I can get my work done), but have not tested other stuff. The only thing I'd like to see is having the PIC MASTER 16c74a probe run at a higher speed. Ours is running at 4 MHz and our product runs at 16 MHz. I can't get the serial port to go fast enough at 4 MHz. Harold