Originally Posted by
moorejl57
You may have better success starting out with a low end PIC such as a 12F675, they are easier to configure and the data sheet is not as daunting. I use the 18F4550 in my OEM stuff since I need a USB bootloader and I bought the CC8E compiler, but that is a powerhouse of a chip for the price. It also has a massive data sheet to match. My current 18F4550 OEM project is streaming audio, updating an OLED screen and running other time critical tasks all at the same time. I had to make use of both the low and high priority interrupt mechanisms to pull it off and it makes my brain hurt.
The biggest issue with using PICs is not reading the data sheet carefully, getting the fuse settings right and getting the IO setup correctly since in many cases it defaults to analog or some other pin function. Generally you need to turn off analog and comparator modes to get plain digital IO.
Jamie