Hello, 3 things first, #1: I pasted both James' & Byrons msg inhere because my reply on both would have some overlap, #2 I would like to make it clear that there was in no way any offense taken (nor meant), I just found it a kind of bold & very generalising statement & I couldn't resist replying with an equally bold phrase to defend my 'kind' hehe (sorry :-) #3 this post has gotten very long, again sorry. From: "James Newton, webmaster" > Hee hee hee... I know exactly what Ben was saying and I also > understand why you would react as you did... see #2 > Teachers tend to think that because they know what there is to > know, they should decide what the student needs to hear... The > course content is set by the teachers. > Students DO however choose WHICH course to take. And what parts > of the course to pay attention to. I completely share this opinion. > Please tell us, jumanji (?), Geert is my real name, & btw nice to meet you all :) > what you want in a beginners kit. > And other newbies should speak up as well. But keep in mind that > you don't know (by definition) what there is to learn. So perhaps > the experts should list what they intend for their version of the > PBK to teach. Add a web page at piclist.com > http://www.piclist.com/techref/idea/website/pageadd.htm > and list your ideas on it, then the newbies can vote by posting > comments. see #4 (at bottom) From: "Byron A Jeff" > > > Well there's two issues here: > > > > > > 1) Beginner's lack the experience to know what they want or need. Most of > > the > > > time their criteria is limited to "I want to program a PIC." and "I don't > > want > > > to spend a lot of money." We've been on that end of the development cycle. > > > So I think it's perfectly valid to have more experienced developers define > > > the design criteria. > > > > > > erm.... so it's impossible for us newbies to have a goal or even a good > > suggestion, & are we just to be ignored ? > > thanks. > No it's not that at all. It's just that a lack of experience makes it > difficult to know what are the relevant bits to pick out of the vast stream > of information that's out there. This is very much true, I started with 0 PIC knowledge few weeks ago & had to do alot of reading to get atleast a tiny bit of clarity. (a pitty for me I found the mailinglist very late, a blessing for you guyz though hahah) But this in no way prevents me to know what I wanna do. I want to make a midi controller, in its simplest desing it should be no more then some A/D conversion & some serial communication. (I hope, heh) Nor would it prevent me to suggest something useful, there could be alot more to it then "which copper wire connects to which gizmo", "it should support this or that type of chip" or "how many LEDs we gonna use". "Narrow focus"? :) Couldn't there be good ideas about size, shape, color, positions of connectors&features, general ease of use, smell, or watever ? I have made my own suggestion, it may as well be a total ridiculous idea, but not by definition because I'm a newbie. >So what tends to happen is that they'll pick > what's popular and have an extremely narrow focus. This I would say is possible, but however I doubt the number would be close enough to 100% to generalise it :-) & see #4 > Those two issues are what started this thread and the project to begin with. > Novices picking the 16F84. >Novices designing their own programmers from the > applications notes. Novices not being able to get going because of one > miswired, or mislabled connection. Novices having an inability to discern > which of the 12 different issues that is causing the system not to work. > It just difficult to see the big picture until you've actually seen the big > picture. Once you've walked the path and know where the potholes are, it's > quite a bit easier to explain to someone else what to watch out for. I'm fully aware of that, & everything would a multiple of times harder without the help of experienced users & teachers, as a matter of fact the PBK could be a course with some teachers available 24h/day (keeping the globality of inet in mind :) but again, see #4 > And BTW I'm specifically referring to a novice to the entire world of > embedded microcontroller development. If anyone came along and said that > they'd been doing 8051 or 68332 type embedded development for a number of > years, they wouldn't be a novice to this discussion because they've > been there. I'd expect to get a lot if very valid issues from such > developers (i.e. pics are too slow, to small, won't run from external memory, > banking sucks, the overbearing use of the W register, too many limitations > in terms of high level languages, and the like...) see #4 :))))) > Finally this is an open discussion. No permission is required to either > participate in it or to repetitively pound a set of points as I admit that > I've been doing. We have quite a few novice users here on the list. Let's > hear their thoughts. > BAJ see #2 & now #4: I'll try to give you an idea why this newbie is here, My level of newbieness: I think the majority of ppl that are interested in learning PICs have quite a bit more knowledge about electronics then myself. In all honesty, if you would ask me to quote the formula of Ohm's law, I'd fail. I started about some weeks ago & did alot of reading, I know a few things, (very few). But I just would like to point out (I'm sure you have thought of us, but want to make sure you guyz dont forget ;) the actual goal of many ppl like me, I'm not learning PIC stuff because they are fun (they are, no doubt) nor because I want to become a master PIC programmer & not even because someone is forcing this upon me (teachers? LOL, j/k) I'm here because there are a few things that I want to build with it. I can only be proud that I'm playing with stuff that can do I-don't-know-what, operate a tank. But at first this is not what I want to do with it (I can't afford a tank anyway). I think many ppl have some stuff to be controlled, & are looking for a way to control it. It's not like someone wakes up in the morning & thinks 'I gonna learn PICs', its more like one wakes up with: 'I wanna make a model train' or 'I want fancy LEDs on my bike' or watever. It just happens to be that PIC are so ideal for the job it seems & relatively cheap, easy, very popular, & have great public support (my compliments to you all, ladies & gentlemen) Plus there are so many nice things you can find to build on WWW that uses a PIC to control it. Often it comes with a hexfile or with the sourcecode. The first makes u stick to identically the same project ( I really dont feel bothering someone to modify his program just for a silly idea of mine that might not even be as functional as I intended) & the second has for the ignorant newbie as much use as....watever heh. So thatswhy I'm trying to learn it myself. As a sidenote I would like to mention that mastering PIC programming ofcourse can be one's goal, for professional reasons seems such a case to me. But in my case, my actual hobby is synths & MIDI & stuff and I also fancy LEDs very much :) Currently the available PIC development packages are, let's call it 'not very cheap' if you want something decent to get going quickly. They probably are all worth the money for wat they can do, but still, ppl like me already spend alot on their main hobby. Still I was Interested enough to invest. I already made a suggestion for the PBK, the modular approach, perhaps you haven't read it, I don't blame you (I also haven't read each & every post, so everything I'm babling here about also may have been said before :) I have no idea of the details of a good and flexible PBK circuitry nor of what would be possible, I am aware that certain things might not be combineable. But what would seem an ideal system to me would be something modular, in a way that the PIC has its own PCB with its own required circuitry & pwr supply (lets call it PICbase for now) & is as small as possible(!) (they could be built for different types mebbe) this fits on a develop/exp/bread board (selfmade or bought) OR a (bought then) educational board. The PICbase also can be connected to a programmer. Different ppl could perhaps design different educational boards that fit into the system, be it for the sake of providing cheap educational stuff or for commercial reasons. There exsists 1 similar product that I know of (I didn't have it in mind when I was thinking about how a PBK should look like, it more likely was one of my synths that inspired me :), the in another post mentioned FlashLab (put all required TM's C's etc here :) but it seemingly has little or no educational value/purpose. The company also sells educational material, of which I aquired the experimenter board & the HW programmer. (I have mentioned this in my suggestion-post) I didn't go for their software(BASIC). I bought a PIC assembly tutor CD from a different company, and I find very good and easy to follow, however its based on F84, & thatswhy I didn't buy the accompanying board, but still, its very good to learn PIC imo. To have the ideal PIC to learn to master it, I'd say the PIC with the most features should be the one. But its all a matter of how far you wanna go, a sort of modular system in my eyes is great for this, u don't buy the features you don't have any need to know about (some parts are ofcourse a basic need, put 'm on the level1 edu module :) , however you could get hooked, & extend it, my current board has in a way this feature, additional spaces for other components are provided. It also holds a F877 & it was already pricy (for me), so with all the stuff on it, I guess it would have been unaffordable. By the time I can build my own project, a system like Flashlab could do, but its limited to 1 kind of PIC I think & it fits on a too big PCB (space can be an issue (e.g. think of model & miniature stuff) for that one might even choose a smaller PIC). On my imagined ;) ideal system I'd plug the PICbase on my selfmade PCB & hook it up to the programmer and/or computer. If the whole lot works I disconnect the programmer & I mount the PICbase & the other PCB into my project & wrap it up. This way you also could either update the PIC inside the system, or you just swap the PICbase. Maybe it even could be designed that the educational boards are of such form that they could be used in your own projects afterwards. My idea about bootloaders, 'my momma told me TSR's are evil' :D , j/k, but it did scare me off a bit tbh. It's just my opinion & I mean no bad towards ppl that make them or support them, but I think price can be an issue here depending on some numbers, it costs extra on every PIC, while a HW programmer is a one time investment. (ppl may wanna build more then 1 of their project, e.g. like a fancy LED things for give-away :) The onboard features make the production of small & ultrasmall series a little bit more possible, coz components aren't exactly the cheapest things around. Ofcourse to get somewhere one need to learn a certain amount of basics, but this don't mean one has got to learn everything. I'm currently in lesson 15 of my course and the more I learn, the more I get fascinated & every ten minutes a new idea of an application pops up in my mind, but I fear the big majority will never see daylight, I have a daytime job, which has nothing todo with electronics btw. I'd be glad if I could get to build few working things & then spend my freetime on using them. so, thanks for reading, I hope you all didn't fall asleep :) best regards, goodluck -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics