I for one, am a guy that started with Basic and found it very difficult to jump over to C.
Tried many times but seems too difficult...
Especially the beast called MPLAB-X.
Ioannis
I for one, am a guy that started with Basic and found it very difficult to jump over to C.
Tried many times but seems too difficult...
Especially the beast called MPLAB-X.
Ioannis
I work with Visual Studio's Visual "Basic", which is a blend of Basic & C. That is helping me learn XC8.
I for one will always use the Best compiler I have found in the last 20+ years or so, PBP3.1.1. I have written MANY projects for the company I worked for as well as MANY of my own projects. I was brought up on BASIC and It seems so straight forward that I don't understand why any body wound switch. I'm 66 years old and the new kids on the block seem to get off on the ARDUINO rage thinking they can do anything with a PRE-MADE boards and some LIBRARIES that someone else wrote for them with minimum documentation. Well that's NOT for me.. I just retired (2 weeks ago) from a prominent 2nd tier supplier of automotive electronics after 39 years of being a Test Engineer and have about 75+ different durability pcb's running code written in from PBP2.6 to PBP3.1.1 as I speak. Some are for Keyless entry and some are for Braking and others are for keyless ignition, From RF decoding to RF encoding. I only HOPE that MELABS keep's on supporting the Language as there compiler seems to be the best I have found..
I for one will keep supporting them until there out of business and beyond. Hopefully NOT soon....
Last edited by Dave; - 15th September 2018 at 22:27.
Dave Purola,
N8NTA
EN82fn
Members seem keen on the "C" language path based on the number of questions and responses regarding available books for beginners.
I too am progressing down this path and note there is a distinct shortage of "friendly" user groups or forums.
I second Richard's comment regarding the establishment of an XC8 support group here on this forum.
Cheers
Barry
VK2XBP
In the current (July/August 2018) edition of Nuts & Volts Magazine is an article titled, "Go PICBASIC PRO with C" (pg 78). It is a simple exposure to some of the familiar PBP methods done in C.
I respect your views, but whilst watching this video the guy did a "whats inside" to discover that the product is based around a Pi
Companies website http://vinylvideo.supersense.com/
So the developers must have confidence in using such devices in a commercial environment.
Never said anything about the hardware, which by the way is very impressive, having WiFi, Bluetooth etc on a low price board. A really dream board, either Pi or other flavors.
My concern is about the libraries that someone, somewhere made with usually no documentation.
Ioannis
I also don't want to decipher someone elses code with out documentation. That's a waste the time? It seems to get you off track of the REAL project at hand. I have found that most Libraries aimed for the Arduino system lack documentation. Most designers of the Arduino systems are just PLUG and PLAY type people. If it doesn't work they are on to a new project or modifying someone else's code to make it work for there purpose and NOT documenting it....
IMHO,
Dave Purola,
N8NTA
EN82fn
Well, I have to say that while I was learning (and still learning) to code in python 3, I have found all the library in use in my code all well and professionally documented. I think python is the computer programming language better documented today.
Alberto
"If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital." Napoleon Bonaparte
It's strange how the Arduino platform gets lumped in with the raspberry pi and other single board computers, but the two are so far apart. Unlike the Pi and other single board computers, the arduino doesn't run an operating system (typically linux based). The arduino platform is similar to PICs in that you upload compiled code in a HEX format.
I've only recently dabbled with Arduino's for the reasons already stated, but all the examples I found and used were well documented, either on the website I found them on, or in the comments within the scripts. I was able to either extract parts of the code I needed for my project, or use the complete code as a routine within the code. No different than taking a sample code from the code section on this forum and modifying it to suit my own needs.
Agreed nothing ever stays still, and maybe PBP has had its day. From what I gather, for commercially robust PIC based projects the preferred method of coding is either some form of C or direct assembly code. Over the years I've been associated with many a forum on various hobbies, and have seen them go the same way as this forum, from being so active that its hard to keep up with posts in an evening, to hardly a single post in two or three weeks, all because the company behind the products never kept up with progress. Years back I was approached by a fellow forum member who wanted to give something back by offering a free library for PBP, and between us (he coded and I tested) developed the DHT22 / AM2002 library for that range of sensors. But surely, with PBP being a commercial product, these sort of things should be part of its development and not left to its users to develop ?
Given the above, I can see why a lot of people have move to a different platform or compiler. Which in some way is sad as I used to love the knowledge that I could get a quick reply to an issue from a handful of experienced and regular users.
One of the comments someone mentioned was that these days people seem to want to get something running without understanding what goes on under the hood so to speak. Is that a bad thing? When I coded in BPB I was interested to learn how the code worked, the logic behind it, but I have no real interested in what goes on inside the PIC, with stuff being moved in registers or whatever. The part I often struggled with was when the likes of Darrel, and Henrik helped out and provided code for a project was when there was no alternative but to add in some assembly code inside the PBP code. I appreciate and bow down to their knowledge, but it was no point them trying to explain the ASM code as it never sank in, and when I asked why they had to use ASM it was either because there was no function in PBP to do what was required, or because it was quicker than the equivalent PBP command for some reason.
I never migrated to PBP3 as I couldn't justify the cost for the small amount of hobby projects I developed, so a lot of my comments and experience relate to 2.60c. Also as a lot of my projects could be developed around PICs that my EasyPIC5 supports rather than the newer PICs I couldn't see the need to upgrade. I'll still come back here on a regular basis, just to see how things are, but I sadly can't see myself using PICs and PBP for my next project.
A somewhat poor analogy but relevant none the less: An OCR (optical character recognition) system was developed to transfer data however was discontinued as it was found a skilled typist could enter the data more reliably that being OCR errors proved quite difficult to spot.
Last edited by Normnet; - 21st September 2018 at 05:02.
I think that you are all missing one very important point.
Arduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users, ranging from Chefs to gardeners including artists and clothing designers.
the ease of use and the fact that they can reuse code without having to learn has opened the door
I see the downside, but I also think its great that a 60 year old lady gardener not too far from me, has built her own temp and humidity monitor for her green house. Never wrote a line of code, but built it from a Pi and a then looked at Arduino.
we never saw that from PIC basic of any flavor.
its a good thing to bring in new people from new areas. It reflects the real world fact that electronics now penetrates all areas of our lives. It is no longer a niche area for geeks like me , hobbyists and seasoned professionals ( like me also). personally I think its great that we are seeing these new entrants, even though they are learning the ropes Backwards. By that I mean they buy a Pi, they load someone elses code and make a project, then it sparks their interest and they learn a little electronics.
I dont care how they learn, just so long as it sparks interest and they begin on the road to becoming an electronics hobbyist.
Just think about it, she is 60 years old ( maybe older) she knows no electronics, but she is now one of us !
not to mention a vast array of cheap "Arduino compatible" sensors/modules in a breadboard friendly form, making it easy to hook up something upArduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users
to test our wildest ideas with no immediate need for a dedicated pcb and better still there is a easy to tap knowledge base for all of them.
no matter what platform you choose the pi/Arduino movement is a boon for all electronics enthusiasts
Warning I'm not a teacher
I’m quite pissed. At least one mod or admin will have to know why, and the commonality of what has gone missing.
Unless you want to be stuck with decade old stuff, different ways of doing things (or knowing what PBP does) are more important than they ever were.
I haven’t needed it myself for a very long time & I won’t be back.
Out of the blue I receive a notification to this thread, I totally forgot I had still set alerts to this board. Its a shame to see so many of the old members departing (by that I mean long serving rather than age ). But I personally feel that PBBpro missed the boat long ago, and as such people have had no choice but to migrate over to other platforms, be that MikroBASIC, or C, or moving away from PICs altogether and opting for an AVR based platforms in order to keep up with technology.
Some of you may remember (around 10 years ago) that with the help of Darrel (god rest his soul) and Henrik I developed a multi-channel thermostat for my reptiles using PID routines. A few years later I wanted to take it further and use cheap colour TFT screens, and give it more functionality, but to do so with PBP would be hard as there was no native support... PBP only supported 4 x 20 LCDs at the time, and even GLCD's were difficult unless you used 3rd party serial devices between the PIC and the screen, but then it was still mono and limited in fonts and styles.
I migrated over to Arduino for my hobby projects, and soon had a version of the above project ported to an Adriuno mega, using a 320 x 240 TFT with "official" library file (like and include file) that had simple commands like tft.print to write to the screen. Granted my code was clunky and didn't follow traditional C styling, but it worked. I was recently mentored by a chap on the other side of the world who took my code and mentored me whilst we completely re-wrote the code, steering me away form the normal BASIC structure I was still used to. The bottom line is that I have now taken the project to the next level. Its more compact, efficient, and now does 8 channels simultaneously on a device that is running at less than half the clock speed of the PIC I used to use.
If PBP had been developed (either by the owners, contracted Mel, Darrel and others, or went open sourced) to keep pace with technology (I mentioned TFT's but other devices like Ethernet, WiFi, and a host of sensors like GPS, pressure and altitude were lacking) then I probably would have stayed with PBP. I do miss the way the forum functioned, and mostly everyone would fall over backwards to help even with the most basic of issues, but then if the product doesn't keep pace then there is nothing to keep them here.
Art mate, sorry to see you go... good luck in whatever platform you have chosen
Sorry, you folks are stuck with me lurking.
My Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus is a giant paperweight that can't even be used as a boat anchor, cause I'd be fined for polluting our waterways with electronic devices.
Not as dumb as yesterday, but stupider than tomorrow!
Look at the date of post #57. It is mind-boggling what has gone on in the world since then. I hope all of you who said goodbye are well.
I am thanks
I still get people asking about stuff here through YouTube,
even though I’ve been a couple of years without activity there too.
Or someone asks about code for something on YouTube, and the code is here.
I care so little about either that it’s at the point I’d delete some of my own threads here if I were able,
because I consider it all long obsolete!
See u again when I’m compelled to look for something
My password for this forum is: 16f84a
Yep, were it within my ability, everything I’ve ever posted here would be gone.
Not through the same negativity as when I left, although that was valid.
Now my view is simply that this forum is a time capsule,
and current projects would be better written with something else,
and also, anyone learning microcontrollers are better off starting with something else.
In terms of helping, etc. If I ever owed anyone anything, it’s been paid off,
and all of our knowledge is built on slippery foundations.
For me to answer questions about my own code now requires a significant amount of re-learning.
Cheers, Brek.
I do understand all of that and the old technologie around the PBP, but mainly my question was on the pass.
If that is OK with you then it is OK with us too.
Thanks Brek,
Ioannis
LOL I'm still getting notifications on this thread...
The only programming of PICs I do these days it to flash firmware for 16F886's to repair faulty telescope control boards and save the members on a forum the cost of a new control board that is based around an SM32 Arm Cortex processor. I'm quite surprised to see the forum is still alive and kicking given the alternatives on the market.
These days if it's not Arduino based products its SM32 or similar... A few years back I used a Wemos min D1 based on the ESP-8266EX to produce a wi-fi enabled thermostat to control the heating element in a DIY reptile egg incubator. It was simple enough using existing library's and allowed me to check the temperatures from my phone or PC based web browser. Technology has left PicBasic Pro so far behind. I wonder what would it would be like if PicBasic Pro became something else, but allowed basic to be used with these sorts of products. I still struggle (I'm 61 next week) with the C+ style, where BASIC seems more logical and familiar to me, so if programs for Arduino or ESP-8266 based boards could be written in basic and then compiled in the format these boards used then maybe PicBasic PRO would not have been where it is now, and this forum would be as active as it was 10 or 15 years ago ??
I'm with Art in some respects. Probably all that has been posted on this forum is basically historical, for use as reference. Maybe it's not even that and it wouldn't be too much of a loss if the data was deleted as it's not really relevant given how home electronics has progressed. Then maybe it should be just mothballed as some form of tribute to the days where it was difficult to keep up with the replies to a post from the Gur's when us newbies were struggling.
PBP will not evolve anymore as Charles posted elsewhere. People who developed this fine compiler have passed away or retired or are very close to retirement. So obviously not new version is expected anymore.
There are other basic compilers now on the market that support the newest PIC and seem they will be supported, at least in the near future.
Times they are changing (B. Dylan).
Ioannis
When I decided to break into microcontroller programming, PICAXE seemed like the simplest choice. That got me started. I quickly realized it was too limiting; chip selection was fixed, and the PICAXE limited even the functionality of the chips. Next step was PBP.
That carried me for several years. I stepped up to learning C and using MPLABX. There is always more to learn. I believe PBP is a great place for hobbyists to start learning. Many find PBP sufficient for their needs. Some use it as a stepping stone.
Scampy, you moved on. That's great! You now have access to more powerful tools. That still shouldn't detract from the value of PBP and the incredible resource this site offers. I personally almost never use PBP anymore, but continue to hang out here and contribute when I can because I personally see value, and a community of good people willing to help others in their challenges. That "people thing" is not found on many other sites.
Mike is right. With a really couple of exceptions many many years ago, this forum is one of the best regarding the quality and attitude of the members.
And all are very grateful to have Lester supporting and keep it working despite no income from any source.
I wonder if there is a way to have it off-line on a disk for example, for the case it will cease operation for any reason.
Ioannis
Scampy and Mike, I am really happy for you and everyone that makes the bold move to other tools. I am too reluctant to dare that and still use the PBP.
Ioannis
Yes, its possibleI wonder if there is a way to have it off-line on a disk for example, for the case it will cease operation for any reason.
Because of GDPR i would need to remove all user identification
- email address-IP address etc
But its possible to run the whole system as a virtual machine under virtual box or xen or similar
Though i will keep the forum online if it is within my power.
I dont think i can devote time to this in March
But in April. I could certainly do something.
I naively thought web archive would have the forum archived but obviously that could not be done.
Ioannis
I do not think waybackmachine can trawl and store the forum
No goodbyes from me.
I'm back, I need to write a basic USB keystroke program. Nothing fancy, just sending a "button" to AxisAndOhs (an interface for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020). Not sure how AAO will recognize the button yet, only one way to find out.
If you're moving on, I wish you well. If you're sticking around, nice to have you.
My Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus is a giant paperweight that can't even be used as a boat anchor, cause I'd be fined for polluting our waterways with electronic devices.
Not as dumb as yesterday, but stupider than tomorrow!
Long time Robert! Everything OK?
Ioannis
Last edited by Ioannis; - 29th March 2023 at 14:06.
Just getting old. Getting my neurons back in action. Can't find my U2 USB programmer, so had to get a PICkit4. I'm also getting back into flight simming, so my first PBP project is an instrument panel for all the buttons, switches and dials, starting with the Cessna 152. I hate using a keyboard, especially in flight sim. this is a layout of what I'm planning. Nothing fancy, no LCDs or lights, just using joystick button USB feature.
I finally got a really nice graphics card, I'm running MSFS 2020 maxxed out on 6 screens (3x22" and 3x19", will have to lower res a bit online). Now I just have to make a decent workspace beside my PC. Sitting at 24R in Montreal in the Cessna 152.
Now this is the really cool part. That previous pic is taken from the "workstation" side of my desk. All 6 monitors rotate 180deg on a swivel towards the "gaming" side. Was lucky to get a set of like-new Acura RSX seats for cheap. My longterm plan is a 2-seat flight-sim arrangement.
That elongated black box on the swivel arm is a UPS. All components run through it, trying to save them from power surges (just got a few while I was typing my prev post). The UPS also serves as a counterweight, the monitors are several inches in from of center of rotation (those two triple supports are not lightweight either).
Robert
Last edited by Demon; - 1st April 2023 at 01:19.
Right now I'd be happy getting a clean compile in MPLAB-X for a 16F877 on a LAB X-1 board. I pulled this code from one of my old folders, I assume something is no longer supported, or I forgot to include some library or some such (I added the blockchain using that youtube video).
I'm guessing that ASM statement is probably no longer good; got some reading to do. MPLAB-X error messages remind me of IBM manuals.Code:ADCON1 = 7 ' A/D off, all digital ASM @ DEVICE PIC16F877, HS_OSC, WDT_OFF, PWRT_ON, BOD_ON, LVP_OFF, CPD_OFF, WRT_OFF, DEBUG_OFF, PROTECT_OFF ENDASM DEFINE OSC 20 LED7 VAR PortD.7 LED6 VAR PortD.6 LED5 VAR PortD.5 LED4 VAR PortD.4 LED3 VAR PortD.3 LED2 VAR PortD.2 LED1 VAR PortD.1 LED0 VAR PortD.0 TRISD.7 = 0 TRISD.6 = 0 TRISD.5 = 0 TRISD.4 = 0 TRISD.3 = 0 TRISD.2 = 0 TRISD.1 = 0 TRISD.0 = 0 LOW LED7 LOW LED6 LOW LED5 LOW LED4 LOW LED3 LOW LED2 LOW LED1 LOW LED0 START: HIGH LED7 PAUSE 500 LOW LED7 HIGH LED6 PAUSE 500 LOW LED6 HIGH LED5 PAUSE 500 LOW LED5 HIGH LED4 PAUSE 500 LOW LED4 HIGH LED3 PAUSE 500 LOW LED3 HIGH LED2 PAUSE 500 LOW LED2 HIGH LED1 PAUSE 500 LOW LED1 HIGH LED0 PAUSE 500 LOW LED0 GOTO START Finish: end
My Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus is a giant paperweight that can't even be used as a boat anchor, cause I'd be fined for polluting our waterways with electronic devices.
Not as dumb as yesterday, but stupider than tomorrow!
Is this correct? I do not use the MLABX IDE so maybe I am wrong.
IoannisCode:ASM @ DEVICE PIC16F877, HS_OSC, WDT_OFF, PWRT_ON, BOD_ON, LVP_OFF, CPD_OFF, WRT_OFF, DEBUG_OFF, PROTECT_OFF ENDASM
Last edited by Demon; - 4th April 2023 at 15:56.
My Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus is a giant paperweight that can't even be used as a boat anchor, cause I'd be fined for polluting our waterways with electronic devices.
Not as dumb as yesterday, but stupider than tomorrow!
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