PIClist, Microchip PIC

Welcome to the official PICList home page.

The PICList is a collection of people interested in the Microchip PIC and other similar processors who have joined the PICList@MIT.EDU mailing list.

This web site is an FAQ and archive for the email list which was started, and is still maintained, by James Newton who was a former list member and admin for several years. Mr. Newton is (as of 2008/06/09 19:20) no longer an administrator for the PICList mailing list and is in no way responsible for its content. This web site is part of the larger massmind collection. The site is huge (~3GB), and not fully indexed by Google or any other search engine, but can be fully searched (slowly) here:

Useful FAQ sections:

Main Index There are also sections for the SX FAQ and AVR FAQ
Source Code Library (huge, really... the code you need is here. e.g. Math, Serial, Stepper Motors, LEDs, etc... )
Beginners Checklist
Projects (good general purpose projects for beginners with lasting value)
FREE PCBs! Enter the PICList design contest to win a free PCB from olimex.com!
Related Sites / LINKS

How to Join, Manage or Leave the MIT PICList email list.

If you are new, read the List Introduction, below, especially the parts about Topics and how to compose a post that will allow us to help you.

Please avoid unnecessary list traffic by reviewing the FAQ and searching the archive before posting. Thank you.

Join, Manage or Leave the email list from the MIT mailman page at:
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist Additional assistance is available in the Full List Manual

HALL OF FAME! Support the PICList

If you have enjoyed the PICList and learned from it or used designs and ideas posted by its members, please consider supporting the PICList by honoring its major contributors with a small donation or a word of thanks. Many contributors are professional consultants who are well known for their excellent work.

PICList Quick FAQ

Q : How do I join / use the PICList?

A : Step by step:

First, you check the PICList.com PIC FAQ at http://www.piclist.com/faq or the SX FAQ at http://www.sxlist.com and search the Archives. to get an instant answer without wasting anyone's time.
Second, you must be subscribed to the list (not the piclist.com site) to post to the list and you must send from the email address you subscribed from. If you want to subscribe, unsubscribe or change your list options, then please visit the PICList Mailman page at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
Third you must compose a message to SPAMpiclist at spammit.edu that will elicit help.
- The subject should be as complete a description of the problem as is possible in 60 characters or so. Compress and distill.
  TOPICS:
  Important: The PICList uses topics to help keep track of various threads and off-topic posts. Therefore, your subject line must start with ONE (and only one) of these labels:
  - [PIC] Should be at the start of the subject line for most postings to the PICList. This says that a PIC microcontroller (or clone) is directly involved, connected or the entire subject of the post. Any person who works with PICs would want to read it...
  - [SX] Items specific to the Scenix SX microcontrollers
  - [AVR] Items specific to the Atmel AVR microcontrollers
  - [ARM] Items specific to ARM microcontrollers
  - [EE] The doing of EE that you can do yourself. Power stations go into TECH unless it's a power station that you can build. So too eg Magnetohydrodynamics etc. Windmill alternators and related systems and alternate energy at the doing level go into EE. Windfarms into TECH. etc
  - [TECH] About technology, Engineering other than EE, science hard stuff. NOT the philosophy of science in any depth. New discoveries in QM, cosmology etc are fine. Almost anything that gets a long thread that diverges can probably evolve into OT once people know it exists. Those who care can follow it. eg Global Warming is TECH at the latest discoveries level but not discussions of "An inconvenient truth" or "The great global warming swindle" etc. This may rate an occasional mention in TECH but long ramblings can go to OT.
  - [BUY] People looking for parts, equipment, or consultants will use this topic.
  - [AD] This is for advertisements of a commercial product or service. Don't spam, do post [AD]!
  - [OT] This label is for posts that are completely off the topic of engineering/technology. The only things we don't ever want to see are religious/metaphysical, sex, hate, or political messages.
- If you are selling something PIC related, limit your posts to new product announcements or replies to other members questions and always add [AD] to the beginning of the subject line.
- CONTENT: The body should
  - - be in plain text, not HTML. (see: emailformat for more information)
  - - be a detailed description of the problem in as few words as possible.
  - - If you have a web page, post a verbose description of the problem to it and put the full URL of that page in your post (include the http:// ) along with a summary of the problem.
  - - include what you are trying to do (overall), what you expected to have happen at this point, what you are seeing, and how you are seeing it (what test equipment, etc...)
  - - Include specific part numbers, code snippets (not the full source, please), and signal descriptions.
Finally, read your message over again, check the subject line and press send.

You may not see your message echoed on the PIClist, and it may take more than a day before anyone responds since most people only read their PICList mail once a day and they are all over the world. If no one responds after a few days, read the rest of this page, and Myke Predko's general list guidelines at www.piclist.com/../listguide, rethink your post and add a "Nobody responded to my last post, what am I doing wrong?" to the beginning and send it again.

If you decide to leave, you may unsubscribe at the PICList Mailman page

Q: What are these [PIC] and [OT] things in the subject lines? What are Topics?

The PICList uses topics and topic filtering to try to allow a greater range of discussion while still respecting the fact that many hardcore engineers, who are valuable resources to the list, may have little time to read off topic posts and need a reliable way to filter them out so that they can spend what time they have concentrating on the topic they are most interested in. Despite our name, the PICList also hosts discussions related to other embedded controllers.

Topic tags must be at the start of the subject line and enclosed in brackets "[" and "]". For example, the current topics are:

[PIC] Should be at the start of the subject line for most postings to the PICList. This says that a PIC microcontroller (or clone) is directly involved, connected or the entire subject of the post. Any person who works with PICs would want to read it...
[SX] Items specific to the Scenix SX microcontrollers
[AVR] Items specific to the Atmel AVR microcontrollers
[ARM] Items specific to ARM microcontrollers
[EE] The doing of EE that you can do yourself. Power stations go into TECH unless it's a power station that you can build. So too eg Magnetohydrodynamics etc. Windmill alternators and related systems and alternate energy at the doing level go into EE. Windfarms into TECH. etc
[TECH] About technology, Engineering other than EE, science hard stuff. NOT the philosophy of science in any depth. New discoveries in QM, cosmology etc are fine. Almost anything that gets a long thread that diverges can probably evolve into OT once people know it exists. Those who care can follow it. eg Global Warming is TECH at the latest discoveries level but not discussions of "An inconvenient truth" or "The great global warming swindle" etc. This may rate an occasional mention in TECH but long ramblings can go to OT.
[BUY] People looking for parts, equipment, or consultants will use this topic.
[AD] This is for advertisements of a commercial product or service. Don't spam, do post [AD]!
[OT] This label is for posts that are completely off the topic of engineering/technology. The only things we don't ever want to see are religious/metaphysical, sex, hate, or political messages.

If you don't use one of these, other people will not see your posts. People who are interested only in the PIC itself listen to [PIC], people who are also interested in general engineering issues still listen to [PIC] and also listen to [EE] and people who are also interested in anything PICListers have to say also listen to [OT]. People who are interested in buying or selling also listen to [BUY] and [AD].

So: Please pick ONE that matches the subject of your post and type it at the start of the subject line and then continue. Putting a topic tag in, filters the post IN to that topic rather than filtering it OUT of the other topics. Ok? Let me say that again...

Putting a topic tag in, filters the post IN to that topic.

The point of this is that it will reduce the likelihood of people posting comments about the space program with [PIC] at the start of the subject line. It also breaks up the PICList in to "Channels" where each topic can be turned on or off with a command to the list server. If you are very busy, then you can only turn on the [PIC] channel and turn the others off. Just tell the list server to only send [PIC] topics by changing your Mailman options at the PICList Mailman page.