Chapter List

24.1 The Plan

This is going to be our first C language project with the PIC24 16-bit microcontroller and, for some of you, the first project with the MPLAB IDE Integrated Development Environment and the MPLAB C30 language suite. Even if you have never heard of the C language before, you might have heard of the famous "Hello World!" programming example. If not, let me tell you about it.

Since the very first book on the C language, written by Kernighan and Ritchie several decades ago, every decent C-language book has featured an example program containing a single statement to display the words "Hello World" on the computer screen. Hundreds, if not thousands, of books have respected this tradition, and I don't want this book to be the exception. However, it will have to be just a little different. Let's be realistic we are talking about programming microcontrollers because we want to design embedded-control applications. While the availability of a monitor screen is a perfectly safe assumption for any personal computer or workstation, this is definitely not the case in the embedded-control world. For our first embedded application, we better stick to a more basic type of output a digital I/O pin. In a later and more advanced chapter, we will be able to interface to an ECD display and/or a...