I'm also a newbie.  I'm desperately wanting to actually play with some PICs,
but so far I've been having fun w/ the simulator and am learning ASM.  What
my question is, how well do those "extra low-cost" programmers work?  I've
seen several stages, some with only 1 resistor, others with several components
and more and more complicated...  I want to play but I don't want to pay :)
If I get a PIC or two and the oscilator, will I be good to go?  Or will I waste

time trying to get one of the cheap programmers working?

Thanks!
David Boone


> > ok, i'll make this quick, i have no idea were to get started in
> > microcontrollers. To put it bluntly, i don't even have a basic
> > understanding of electronics. I've read a couple beginner's books but i
> > don't know more than very simple digital stuff, although i know a good
> > deal about simple analog stuff. I was thinking that maybe i could get a
> > stamp to start out on, since they seem more user-friendly than PICs,
> > since i actually had some trouble programming pascal, so if i have
> > trouble in pascal, then i know i'll have trouble writing a program in
> > ASM or hex, or binary, or whatever. I like basic and i like how stamps
> > are set up, they look like they have a good introduction to it, but it
> > seems kinda pricey, that is why i am thinking about pics, since i know
> > all the professionals use them, and they're much more powerful than
> > stamps, but the complexedy of them turns me off. I've tried several
> > newsgroups about this and none of them can give me a straight answer
> > about what i should try, so can you?
> > This is my first day on this group so sorry if something like this is in
> > an faq or something, ps where's the faq