At 04:20 AM 1/24/99 , you wrote:
>I'm a near-beginner in programming microcontrollers, though I'm an
>electrical engineer by training.  I'll be following the Benson books and
>the Predko book to learn the PIC family.
>
>First problem is to decide which programmer and prototype boards to buy.
>For the very beginning Benson experiments, I understand MicroEngineering
>Labs has a ready made board. Is this a good board to get ?
>
>Second problem is to decide on a programmer. I see there are dozens
>available, but it appears two good choices are the MicroChip PICSTART Plus
>and the DonTronics SimmStick programmer and system.  I'm looking for advice
>from experienced PIC people: which programmer (and board system ?)  should
>I buy ?
>
>Lastly, I'm from the Fortran days. What's the best book to get up to speed
>on C++ for microcontrollers ?
>
>-Vaso
>

Vaso,

I would reccomend the Propic2.  You can build it yourself, or Octavio can
supply you with one already built.  It is very cheap to build and runs
under windows.  Check out his website at http://www.propic2.com for more info.

As far as other languages for pics, there are several compilers out there
that use basic, C and I believe pascal as well.  The problem with them is
they all convert the output to an assembly language format for the pics to
use.  You really need to learn there native language in order to use them
effectively.  Also, the above mentioned languages may not optimize the code
effectively enough to squeeze in that program or to meet critical time
requirements of some circuit designs.  You would have to optimize the code
manually.

For another tool to learn these critters, go to Microchips website and get
mplab.

Brian