You should come up with a list of subjects, in relative order, then we could give suggestions on what to include.

Here are some of the things I had to learn when starting with ucontrollers.

• Choosing a Crystal (and the appropriate Decoupling Capacitors)
• Issues with stray capacitance on breadboards
• Setting up the Internal Oscillator
• Turning off unused features (like the Comparators)
• Making Ports Analog/Digital
• Setting up Interrupts (learning that there is no vector table on 18f and lower).
• Setting up/Reading the ADC
• Using an LCD(HD44780) 4bit/8bit modes

There are more, but I cant think of any more this late at night, anyways.

I also think that maybe you should try and make it more abstract, and not focus on a specific device when talking about a topic, then after the theory you could have links to source-code for specific pic devices in specific languages.

i.e. You could talk about setting up and reading from the ADC by talking about setting certain registers, then reading from certain memory locations etc.. Then you could provide asm code for 1 or 2 popular 16f's and 18f's, then some ansi C code for 16f's and 18f's.

This is an idea I have been toying with since I have started to rewrite my PIC libraries, by creating a tutorial then tacking my code on it.

 

If you write this book please do not make it hard to understand. I had to take a microcontroller course and I hated it because the book we used, "PIC Microcontroller: An Introduction to Software & Hardware Interfacing" is the worst book at communicating to the reader how to program a pic. The author of that book assumed too much of prior knowledge of the reader. So please make your book NOOB friendly....

 

This book is focus on the PIC 18F series, it might be bit advance for absolute beginners.

 

Actually the 18F series PICs are easier than the 16F IMO. I thought the same thing ages ago but the 18F feels right, great compilers and the free versions of C18 & Swordfish BASIC are awesome.

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
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Would it be easier for an absolute beginner to start with the 16F series? Or is it better to start with the 18F series?

I mean a beginner might be overwhelmed by so much new features the 18F series have.

 

Don't worry. You won't be overwhelmed. I hear that nonsense all the time.

All the PICs, from the smallest/oldest to the largest/newest work very much alike. The bigger ones just have more pins, more peripherals/features and often more speed. That doesn't make them harder to use. You only use the features/peripherals you need for the program you're writing, no matter which chip you're using.

Start with any PIC you want to. If possible, start with something popular like the Junebug (18F1320), so you have plenty of help (if you need it) available for the chip you're starting out with.

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Futz's Microcontrollers & Robotics
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This is a great idea I am just starting out in Pic I have just built a project from Maplin which can program 4 chips 8P 14P 18P 28P came with Pic16F 627
I don't know if it is any good or not I feel this book can help me get me started as it is going to up to date.
Project I just built might be out of date.

 

Does your programmer program the 18F series? If so which ones? 18F1320, 18F4620?

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
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These are an excellent series of tutorials for the 16F
http://www.gooligum.com.au/tutorials.html

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I learned assembly more than 10 years ago. Forgot most of it.

Bought Bill's Junebug kit, highly recommend the 18F1320.

Why??

I have half of Mike Predko's library of books on assembly and found his method of teaching difficult.

The main problem is the books tend to jump all over the place. Example is 123 PIC Microcontroller Experiments.

I thought I bought a book on assembly only to find out that lesson starts on Page 187.

The first part of the book gets you into C.

For mysefl I find assembly easier.

The book is also based on 16F PICS.

I also have PIC in Practice by D.W. Smith.

Outdated, it's nice to see sample circuits based on the 16F84 which is very good but he jumps right past a Header file for the 16F84 to a program example.

To me that's like skipping the first few chapters of a book and trying to understand the rest.

I used to teach electronics, Bill, learn from your audience, find out what they find most difficult about learning, then design a laymans book based on what you hear from them.

Keep it simple.

Most times what we think is very simple is the most confusing. Take a look at how most programmers teach Linux.

BTW, what does the following Equate statements mean??

TMR0 EQU 1 ;means TMR0 is file 1
STATUS EQU 3 ;means STATUS is file 3
PORTA EQU 5 ;means PORTA is file 5


What does he mean by "file 1", "file 3", "file 5"??

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I'm actually sitting down and writing a some sample programs (in assembler) for the book.
I would like to cover three languages plus some hardware.
Assembler (MPASM)
BASIC (Swordfish SE)
C (C18 SE)
All are the free demo versions, actually since Swordfish SE has a 256 byte ram limitation it's perfect for the 18F1320 (256bytes RAM)

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

I think it would be cool to have 3 code examples of each project

Small projects all written in the 3 languages that you suggested:

Assembly
Swordfish Basic
C18

Almost like an opensource book based on the 18F1320

__________________
We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction. Malcolm Gladwell

www.olson-engineering.com

 

Read EQU as EQUals.
So the statement, TMR0 EQU 1, means make the label TMR0 equal to 1. This is because the TMR0 register resides at address location 1. The STATUS register resides at address location 3, etc.
These equate statements allow us to refer to the registers with a name rather than a number (address). People are better with names.

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Inside every little problem, is a big problem trying to get out.

 

I agree that would be an excellent idea.

The 18F1320 is not much different than any other 18F PIC, what you learn on it would be easy to migrate to the larger more complex PICs like the 18F4620 and the amazing 18F67J60 (Ethernet)

__________________
Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
http://www.blueroomelectronics.com/

 

Thanks for the answer on the EQUals.

Is it common practice to include these statements in code?

The reason I ask is that I don't see these used often in other peoples source code. I see it in book examples and wonder if the book was just outdated and upgrades in technology do not require it anymore.

Maybe the author recommends it so as to demonstrate "proper" coding???

Thanks again, very helpful

__________________
We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction. Malcolm Gladwell

www.olson-engineering.com