Hello Everyone, I have beeen given a VM111 programmer and experimentation board as a Christmas gift . Unfortuanaly, my Pc does not have a serial port . I have bought a USB Serial Converter , suitable for Win 7 . It says on the box " Converter for USB to RS-232 serial interface " so I guess that should be Ok it sound s right !!
But now my problem , I can work with discrete componants , no problem there , but I have absolutly no expeiience of programming ! so I am seeing this PIC programming as " one small step for mankind one giant leap into nowhere " for me .
Can you suggest where I start , preferably , something easy to achieve , without blowing the board into the middle of next year !!!
Any help is very much apprieciated.
thank you
bubbles
Personally, being a high-level programmer with little experience with PIC programming, I would have recommended the PICKIT2. It has different examples that gradually increase in difficulty and it has documentation that describes what each line of assembler does exactly.
The VM111 serves its purpose very well but it is not really an educational board with which to start learning PIC programming since it does not have any of those step by step tutorials so you will need to find out how everything works by yourself, and the world of PIC programming is a very very big world.
You will probably need a real RS232 port on your computer, many people have made the mistake of using a serial<->USB convertor, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t…
As a sidenote: be careful when buying a book about PIC programming, since that book will be highly dependant on one particular compiler/environment and one particular (brand of) PIC.
Many thanks for your advise, your comments are noted.
Again thank you
Bubbles
Good luck and have fun learning
As your native language is Dutch, I can recommend this book:
PIC-microcontrollers in de praktijk + diskette | Francesco P. Volpe
YES, it works with older PICs (although a PIC16F84 is still widely available) but it really describes the ins and outs so you really understand HOW a PIC works and what the few assembler commands mean. After reading it is easier to understand datasheets of newer PICs. They even use a “higher level” language in the book of which the equivalent is assembly is given. This learns you some very interesting techniques for loops, conditions, … It is not an easy book to read but it is worth the effort trying.
O, mostly the USB<->RS232 adapters do NOT work with these kind of devices 
.
I suggest going to the microchip web site. They are the manufacturer for PICs and have a great deal of training and examples for all PICs.
[quote=“bubbles”]Hello Everyone, I have beeen given a VM111 programmer and experimentation board as a Christmas gift . Unfortuanaly, my Pc does not have a serial port . I have bought a USB Serial Converter , suitable for Win 7 . It says on the box " Converter for USB to RS-232 serial interface " so I guess that should be Ok it sound s right !!
But now my problem , I can work with discrete componants , no problem there , but I have absolutly no expeiience of programming ! so I am seeing this PIC programming as " one small step for mankind one giant leap into nowhere " for me .
Can you suggest where I start , preferably , something easy to achieve , without blowing the board into the middle of next year !!!
Any help is very much apprieciated.
thank you
bubbles[/quote]
hi what you need is a book called pic in practice newnes pub