> > I can't stop myself discussing the question of choice of 18 > > versus others, though I do realize I should. > So we finally found a point of agreement after all. > As with others who you have found unintelligible of late, the main "problem" is probably the fact that English (or even American) is not the originator's mother tongue. I suspect that if you replied in Russian your response would be entirely incoherent. What he was saying seemed coherent enough to follow his main points. Mike is making some arguably valid points which require a value judgement - what one thinks of the argument will vary with, amomgst other things, what sort of philosophy you were mother-ducked (ie mentally imprinted) with. (I come from a SC/MP, F8, 6800 mother-ducking and am thereby, arguably, crippled for life)(The 6809 should be Canonised). Lets try and translate Mike's message, with a little licence added. - The programming model of the 14 & 16 series PICs is difficult for a beginner to come to grips with (because the processor is based on a zillion year old NMOS design and the manufacturers have not chosen to improve these versions in the way that others, such as Ubicom, have). - Starting one's education with something that inflicts brain damage on the student may be good for the soul but damaging to the education. There are many many other processors with a much cleaner architecture that allows the student to focus on the programming task per se rather than the anomalies of the hardware. - Microchip do make a line of processors (the 18xxx series) that are more "normal" but the development support is poor compared with that available for alternatives,.such as the AVR. - JFK had the right idea - The affects of Protein & Calorie deficiency on children * are nothing compared to the damage inflicted on a nubile brain by bank switching, paging, arcane commands, quaint port behaviour and more. Use of the 18xxx series or the AVR remedies these shortcomings. (* - hey - how would YOU translate Marasmus :-) ? ) - People beginning with the AVR or even the PIC18xxx are generally found to be happy chappies. The notional complexity increase over the PIC 14/16 core seems to be more than compensated for by the cleaner design. - The 14/16 series PICs do have a place in the market due to the efficient code they produce in the hands of experts - this fact has little bearing on their appropriateness for beginners. - But the AVR is better anyway. So there :-) _________________________ Seemed intelligible enough to me. :-) E&OE Remember, I'm just the translator (be it ever so poor a job). No guarantee that these are my opinions (or Mike's for that matter:-)). Just as well we didn't have to interpret Kwashiorkor (like Marasmus but different). RM -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body