Trying out the PIC16F1829

I recently bought some PICs for a project – the devices in question being the fairly recent 16F1829 variety.  (Reasons: Cheap, 32MHz, 20 pins, can self-program, 8K code RAM, 1K data, 2 x SPI ports – all good stuff). Having used the 16f627 for quite some time, a few things were immediately noticeable:

1. These things are packed with peripherals and the datasheet goes on forever!

2. A new-ish version of MPLAB is required. At first I downloaded MPLAB X – Oh man.. What a bloated,  over-complicated, C-orientated mess.  Sorry Microchip, it’s awful! Fortunately older versions of MPLAB are still available and v8.92 did the trick. The trick being, you know, ” Enter some code, click build, burn to chip”.  Simples.

3. My venerable DIY Tait Classic parallel port programmer wont do. WinPIC800 supports the 16F1829 but only with their proprietary hardware so I ended up buying a clone of the PICkit3 which included a ZIF adapter for standalone programming. Check Ebay etc.

4. There wasn’t a massive amount of example code on the net, so the first thing I did was make my own template. It’s here if you want to use it.

Anyway, the chip appears to do what I need so hopefully development can now begin..