Death to microchip 2006 January 17 0:30
Posted by diamond in : Random, Work , add a commentToday i started trying to figure out how to work with one of these. At first glance, it looks like it will be straight forward. It comes with 2 cds, chock-full of documentation, and one of which purports to have 7 tutorials “for users new to PICmicro® microcontroller units“. Uh huh.
So, you open up the docs, and start reading through the first tutorial, “Switch Debouncing”. The first section introduces the problem of switch bouncing and why it’s necessary to correct it. Fine. It’s stuff i’ve covered in college, but that should just make it easier to understand what’s going on. The next section starts talking about algorithm design and the various methods you can implement to do debouncing. Um, ok. Seems a little ott for what’s supposed to be your first introduction to code, but ok. Next section: running the demos provided. Huh? Aren’t we even going to look at the code first? *shrug* Next section.. wait, there _is_ no next section. That’s the end of the tutorial. You look through the provided C and assembly code, and while both are recognisable as such, you can instantly tell that without detailed knowledge of the chip and the language extensions it uses it’s meaningless to you. GAH!
Ok you say, there are 2 cds of documentation here, it’ll be somewhere else in them. You spend an hour or two looking through numerious pdfs. You find circuit diagrams for the chip you have, you find timing diagrams for the chip you have, you find circuit diagrams for the programmer you got with the kit, and on and on and on. You open up the development environment and look at the help files. Wait! There’s a tutorial section! You gleefully run through the first tutorial… Oh. All it does is introduce how to compile, run and debug code. Nothing about actually writing the code in the first place. *cries*
Cue cjb with a link to a free online book that does _exactly_ what you’re looking for. Wahey for cjb!
In less dramatic news, me eyes are getting worse again. I’m waiting for the blood tests to come back from the hospital before i go back to my gp. Looks like i’ll be seeing a dermatologist after all. This is really beginning to piss me off.
*Update*
Model railway with web control! Oh the fun -)