If I had to condense 3 years of PIC micro experience into one page, what would I say?

I had a new user to PIC micros ask me what he should learn. This is what I told him, the 3 most important techniques that I use in all my programming.

• Interrupts
  
• Ring Buffering
• State machines

Interrupts

Learn how to use interrupts - they are used in buffering. In my experience, usually the arrangement is a main() loop, with interrupts collecting data to be processed by main().

Ring Buffering

Any PIC micro must collect data, then analyze it or process it. Most of the time, theres not enough time to analyze the data as its collected.

Therefore, use ring buffering. Collect the data in the background, with interrupts, filling up a ring buffer with routines such as ring_buffer_put(). In the background, at the programs leisure, use ring_buffer_get() to get the data out, and process it.

State Machines

Most problems can be simplified using state machines. Learn them - trust me, it'll save you time.

Links

Search the web, using terms like 'state machine c' or 'ring buffer c' on www.google.com. The following web will get you started: http://www.bknd.com/cc5x/multitasking.shtml.

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