> But you are much more experienced than a hobbyist, who might not like
> 'small' parts (but that contradicts the popularity of 18 pin parts). 
Really small parts are a pain for hobbyists because the less pins you can spare the more awkward programming gets (having a dedicated pgc and pgd is usefull but not vital and having a dedicated VPP/MCLR is nessacery for simpler programmers if you ever wan't to program the device again.

but 18 is big enough that you can afford to dedicate the programming pins at least in your earlier experiments.

> 
> Another possible reason for the popularity of 18 pins parts: the 16c84
> was an 18-pin part....
yeah, the C84 was the original hobbyist pic (first pic with rewritable program memory i belive) and as such over the years its close replacements have also done well.
> 
> > > and the price difference between 28
> > > and 40 pin parts is small (so why pay almost the same for 
> > less pins?).
> > 
> > The price of a PIC for one-offs doesn't matter much anyway.
> 
> For you. Some hobbyists have to justify every $ spent on their hobby to
> their spouse (but probably not every hour spent).
> 
> I don't ask my customers for their age, but I think quite a lot are
> sub-20 and even sub-18. Money constraints for those groups are realy
> different than for us!
> 
> > The same argument goes for why not pay a little extra for a 28 pin 
> > part versus a 18 pin part.
> 
> IIRC the price jump for 18 to 28 is larger than 28 to 40.
> 

> I don't think space is on the average hobbyist's mind.
no but ease of construction is

full width dips are annoying for the breadboarder because they mean you get far less holes to attatch stuff to each pin on the chip (most breadboards are designed arround skinny dips)

Another thing is i wonder is if people realise that the 28 pin pics exist and they do whether they realise they come in a skinny dip package (anyone whose experiance comes from the 8 bit era will expect a 28 pin chip to be full width with the same issues mentioned above) and i don't think i've seen any books that prominantly mention any 28 pin pics either.


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