In response to many of your comments, I would like to clarify that I am
in fact on a fairly tight budget. However, because this something I
would like to pursue, I don't mind investing a little sum in the right
tools.

For that reason, I mentioned that I got a Warp-13A programmer instead of
hacking together my own.

Anyhow, I am still trying to figure out what language to start with, and
as mentioned by some of you, I've been leaning toward starting with the
MLabs assembler language because it is both free and there seems to be
lots of support for it.

As to learning a HLL first, I think that the very first project should
really be done at the lowest level so you know what is happening when
working with HLL later on. This was true for me when I was learning C++.
You really can't do much of the "Higher Level" WinAPI and what not
without first understanding the fundamentals of C. Once you understand
that and learn about the WinAPI you can start using things like MFC to
program windows app. The knowledge learned from the API and other
fundamentals are totally essential in writing a better app.

In terms of choosing the right chip, I'm quite happy with my selection
as I am not wanting to do very complicated things with the PIC at the
moment. The PIC16F8XX family looked good because of their PWM A/D and
plenty of I/O. that plus a 20Mhz is more then I need for my project.

I am sure there are advantages of using the 18F series, but for now I
will stick to my selection.

Thanks
Aaron

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