What a good posting. I agree with most of what you said. It seems that I am a "newbie" with a similar background, and about 6months ahead of you. I have done a lot of reading as well. I am a "very experienced" computer programmer in financial institutions, and if anyone needs help with Databases, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, even MySQL, feel free to drop me a line.... but, PICs and electronics in general are pretty foreign to me (still). So, one observation as relative newbie: I wish there was a "concept index". I needed a MOSFET for a recent project, and first I had to discover that I needed a MOSFET. Then I had to go through the whole learnong curve f what a MOSFET is compared to a transistor, and why I couldn't just use a PIC pin, etc. What I needed was to be able to say: Here is a problem, what are good ways to solve it, and how does one discover what parts fulfil a given function. I ended up having just the PIC, then the PIC with a transistor, then a PIC with a 2N7000 FET, finally a BS170MOSFET. I would have been much happier if I could have skipped some of those steps. Subsequently I have found that I could have used a microchip part as well in an 8pin PDIP instead of two TO-92 packages... How does one efficiently find the right part to solve a particular problem? Does eveyone just know what a 2N???? is? Back on the subject, and perhaps some next steps for you - (i.e. general hardware electronics tutorials): have a look at: http://www.faqs.org/docs/electric/index.htm and http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/ I have found them both to be useful. Rolf Bill Kuncicky wrote: > A few days ago I posted my first piclist posting, asking for some > advice about tutorials about pic programming. I received a lot of > very helpful replies from experienced people, and after spending a few > days looking at the different tutorials thought it might be helpful to > other newbies to give my thoughts. > > First, I think that all the tutorials approach the subject from the > viewpoint of a hardware person who wants to learn something about > programming, rather than from the viewpoint of a software person who > knows how to program (although not a pic) but needs a lot of guidance > on the hardware aspects of things. The reason that I say this is that > a lot of knowledge about such subjects as, for example, A/D conversion > seems to be taken for granted. Us programmer types are not > necessarily all that familiar with such things. :-) We should be, I > agree, but I think that more emphasis on exactly what is happening > with the hardware in even the most trivial circuit would be useful. > > [Lots of good stuff snipped] > > Take care, > Bill > > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist