Byron Jeff wrote 2012-01-24 20:06:
>
> It's hard to get newbies to see that if they want to develop anything
> that
> having more tools makes it easier to do, but harder to learn. The 16F84
> does the opposite: easy to get started, difficult to do anything real or
> substantial.

Yes, but why the assumption that people need to learn on the same chip
that they'll later use for substantial things?

My tutorials (www.gooligum.com.au/tutorials.html) start with the very
humble 12F508, because that approach allows me to introduce the PIC
architecture and instruction set a piece at a time.  The 12F508 has only
one bank and one page, so I can defer the painful topic of banking and
paging until lesson 3. I can show the whole register map and explain
what's what, simply, because there's so little there. And no comparators
or ADC means I don't have to say "do this to make the pins digital for
now, and we'll explain in a later lesson".  Many people are ok with that,
but I prefer to avoid that hand-waving if I can.

I then introduce devices with just a few more features each time - and
hoepfully people get the message that you don't have to learn just one PIC
and use that, but instead there is a whole range available, and you can
choose the one with the features you need.

I'm not saying that picking a capable device and learning it isn't valid.=20
I just don't agree that learning a simple PIC first is in any way
limiting.

Cheers,

David Meiklejohn
www.gooligum.com.au



--=20
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
.