Richard Seriani, Sr. wrote:

>Given that the selection of the mid-range PIC is not going to change and 
>remembering that this is an introductory course (no more than 16 weeks, 3-4 
>hours per week, including lab time), which mid-range PIC would you selct, and why?
>  
>
I think this is really rather similar to a question I asked a few months 
ago about "what is the best PIC to have around when doing R&D".  Or, put 
in your context, which PIC is best to use so that I can focus on one PIC 
processor in the course.

Originally the answer to this was the 40 pin 16F877 or it's 28 pin 
(narrow) brother the 16F876.   For me, I've now switched to the 16F887 
and 16F886.   About the only thing you loose going to the 887 is the 
parallel slave port, which I've never used, and don't expect to need to 
use in the near future.   But the you gain a newer processor which 
includes an internal 8mhz oscillator so you don't have to worry about 
whether or not the xtal on the board is actually running, since you 
don't need an xtal for most apps.

There was some discussion on the list about whether a 28 or a 40 pin 
processor was "best" for this purpose.  Some liked the narrower form 
factor of the 28 pins, and some liked the large number of port bits on 
the 40 pin.  I use both as needed.   Generally the 28 pin if I'm just 
doing a small Proof of concept design (just prove that I can in fact do 
some small part of the coding), or the 40 if I'm doing a one-off which 
needs a lot of I/O.

You may also want to consider adding some material on the smallest pics 
(the 10F stuff), since that is a completely different way of thinking.

-forrest
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