>I am a newby to PIC's,the last processor I used was the 6502. I have a
>project which I need a 10 bit A/D and some number crunching. I have
>tentatively picked the 16F873/4/6/7 as it has flash program memory.
>1. Do I need a programmer or can I just program it in circuit?
>
>2. I am tying on a ISD Voice Chip onto it and I notice some come with a
>SPI/Microwire interface. What is this and is it messy to program?
>
>3. I have downloaded MPlab. What else do I need to program? I would prefer
>to program in Basic rather than assembler, is there a shareware or
>inexpensive compiler on the net.
>

You might want to look at the PicBasic Pro compiler (ME Labs). You can use
it from within MPLab. Get Microchip's PicStart Plus programmer to go with
it. The code samples that come with the compiler include serial routines
for I2C and A/D on the 16C7XX. Not sure whether this will be completely
adequate for your application but the compiler does also accept inline
assembly code.

Reg Neale