Hello all, I'm a linux sysadmin, but originally an EE by education.
I'm very technical and have a decent to thorough understanding of c,
perl, shell scripting etc, and anything server and network related WRT
to TCP/IP.  I tend to tell people "just google for it" and have a low
tolerance for stupid questions.  In general, my goal for PIC is
hobbyist level, but you never know, this knowledge may result in side
work or projects for others.

I bought a PIC dev kit from Microchip with the ICD2 back in 2003, but
never did anything with it other than (accidentally) blank the demo
chip while twiddling with things.  I put it in a box and never touched
it again.  Now I have a project I want to do, and the PIC seems
perfect for it.  My project is straight forward: I want to make a
powered ventilation system for my attic (i.e. turn a fan off and on
based on temperature, and display the status to a user).  I know, I
know, you can buy those for not a whole lot of money from Lowes or
Home Depot or any number of sites on the net.  Well, what would I
learn doing it that way?  I'd much rather go through the struggles of
doing it myself and learn in the process.

That being said, I'm looking for guidance (and trying to keep the
stupid questions to a minimum).
1. From what I can tell, to use c as the programming language, I have
to be using a PIC18 or higher, and with PIC16 or lower, I must use
assembly.  Yea or nay?
2. In my project, I will need a display of some sort, a relay output,
a few buttons, a remote temp sensor, and maybe a pot (or could use
buttons to move target temp up/down).  I don't have the means to
design and build my own board, but when you make a project, do you
typically use some prefab board?  I have found a few that seem to be
useful and reasonably priced, but I'm just googling. I thought you
might have some specific recommendations.  (I think
http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?cPath=3D112_160_197&product=
s_id=3D583
is possibly exactly what I need, but I don't yet grasp the difficulty
of driving a Hitachi HD44780 16 char x 2 line display in assembly.)
3. I'm interested in using piklab and gpasm/gplink under Linux, but am
willing to use the MPLAB IDE if I have to.  My limitations are that I
just don't know Windows like I know Linux.  Any recommendations or
experiences would be welcome.
4. Book recommendations are welcome.  I also expect that online
tutorials and others' documented projects will be great teaching
tools.

Part of my personality is that I'm impatient.  I want to do things and
make big dreams now!  So I'm working on learning first, and not just
trying random stuff :-) (which is what I typically do).

TIA and HAND!
--=20
Regards...=A0 =A0 =A0 Todd
I seek the truth...it is only persistence in self-delusion and
ignorance that does harm.=A0 -- Marcus Aurealius

--=20
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