Necesary tools and progress check

Time for a progress check. After trying to write the code in assembler, I realized that I should let my ego have a break and try to find a free C compiler for my PIC.

I am perfectly aware that eventually I could have written the code in asm, but also I would have wasted a lot of time, time which I can use for some other tasks. I fired up good old Google, and did a search on free PIC C compilers. After some reading, I decided to use CC5X free PIC compiler, probably the first ever created. It even integrates itself into MPLAB, which is great, perfect for what I need.

Another quintessential tool is Oshon Soft PicSimulator. It is an amazing software, allowing you to see what your code can do and so many things, until know everything that worked on the simulator, worked the same on the actual microcontroller.

This is how I spent my day, and by the end of it, I had a working program.

I will elaborate further on in my posts about the innerworkings of my Etch a Sketch design. including the hardware and software side.