Changing Times - Not recommended for new designs . . .

I often get responses from LinkedIn members commenting on the PIC development boards, and then saying how they have moved on to Arduino or STM. I find it interesting how the phrase "moved on" underpins their view of a PIC versus the ATMEGA.

The question to me is: Moved on to what?

Tool Chain

In the past, and the days of "David Tait's PIC Page" https://www.nomad.ee/PIC/index.shtml, there is no disagreement on the difficulty of getting an LED to flash. Your options were ASM, a very expensive programmer, and then limited choices in Flash variants.

When the AVR came out, Microchip was hot on their heels with the PIC16F84, and then many more followed. The PIC16F887, PIC16F877, and PIC18F452 are strangely still the most widely used devices.

Are there deficits in the toolchain for PICs? To program a pic these days you need a bootloader and a C compiler - yes, we have that these days. Some of the more obvious choices are:

• HITEC C
• MikroC
• NECTO
• FORED

Interestingly, Microchip just released a plugin for Visual Studio code, and it's a step forward if you want a more coding-centric environment that doesn't burn brain cells just to set things up, so once again there are no deficits.

As far as an easy-to-buy development board . . . with a bootloader, HavenTechnik supplies a range and so does MikroC https://www.mikroe.com/ready-pic .

Where to start?

I have often wondered why Arduino just took off and while we can attribute a lot to cost and ease of use, I wonder if it's just because it has a fun name, there is lots of community support and well, my friend has one too. So, it's a fad?

No, the sales numbers will show that it's not a fad rather it's a very successful hobbyist platform that has found its way into the professional arena and holding its own at the same time.

Would you be making a mistake if you took the time to explore the world of PIC Microcontrollers and what they have to offer? Recently Elektor published an article on the PIC16F648 and PWM: https://www.elektormagazine.com/articles/pwm-measurement-with-a-pic-microcontroller, and it is an extract from a published book https://www.elektormagazine.com/news/new-book-microcontroller-basics-with-pic

While the image below is inflammatory because Microchip will always supply, it does indicate that the Arduino core is viewed as an aging device - but there would be something to replace it.

The upside for example is that the PIC16F887 and the PIC16F877a already have an entire family of devices in the PIC16F18877 range that replace and update their predecessors.

No you wouldn't be making a mistake or setting yourself back.

Meditation

If you have "moved on" to ARDUINO, STM, etc we all have to move with the times and address the needs of our projects with the right tech. It's a complicated career-defining and molding decision. The PIC microcontroller has however kept up with the times and the case in point is that for all the fan-fare, ARDUINO UNO or R3 is an 8BIT platform . . . and so is the PIC. Somehow we have overlooked the advanced features they have to offer, the abundance of devices, project pages, and the community that was already there all in favor of a little blue board.

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