On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 21:50 +1000, Andrew Rich wrote:
Sometime I wonder if just programming in perl on the LINUX side might be just as easy
The PIC microcontrollers are frankly *dreadful*, without a single redeeming feature. What makes me like them even less is that you're forced to use the bloody awful Windows software to program them, and the programming hardware is extremely finicky. There is a PIC assembler that runs under Linux, but it sucks elephants through very fine mesh.
I've ditched all my PIC stuff and now use AVR, which is extremely well supported on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. It's a better product, the CPU core is generally faster clock-for-clock and it's only slightly more expensive. How much is your time worth?
If you're not convinced yet, buy an Arduino board. You probably couldn't put together an AVR board for less in onesy-twoesy quantities.
Gordon MM0YEQ