Right now I am playing with the PIC processor I described earlier. Basically things are working fairly well. I am using PicBasicPro from microEngineering Labs to write code for this device. I am using MicroCode Studio from Mecanique in order to actually write the code – basically to use as the editor. Now, my comments…

Firstly, MicroCode Studio is brain dead with the editor. It used Alt-C as CUT, and Atl-O as Copy. I have lost code when I have used the normal copy command and it got cut. This is rather annoying in the extreme. The other major issue is regard to numbers. The code will let you place negative numbers into variables. For instance you can have
FOR i = -180 to 180
But this will not work because i is unsigned. This is just DUMB. I have no problems with negative numbers not working. Well, I do, but it is not that much of a problem. What I hate is when the math just does not work and it does not warn you at compile time that you are attempting to use a signed number.

What I do really love is the Boot Loader within the software. You can load in a small program onto your processor, and then simply use RS232 to upload new code. This reduces the time frame required to program a device from 2-5 minutes down to 15 seconds. Basically a real time saver. The basic language is taking a bit of getting used to. It is more like MS Basic from the old days rather than VisualBasic. Gosub is used instead of functions.