The PIC is a microprocessor manufactured by Arizona Microchip. The initials PIC are said to stand for "Programmable Interface Controller". PICmicros are used everywhere as tiny controllers embedded in things like television remote controls, telephone answering machines and in a large number of industrial devices. They give designers the ability to produce complex behaviour without the need to create expensive digital circuits to do the job.

For example, rather than build a large circuit to scan the keypad of a remote control it is much quicker and easier to program a PICmicro to do the job. The low price of the PICmicro makes this approach economical as well. A single PICmicro contains all the elements needed to make a running computer. This means that the larger PICmicros can also be used to replace a complete microprocessor system.

PICmicros are also very attractive to anyone who wishes to learn and understand hardware and software. The PICmicro we are going to use can be easily programmed and re-programmed to test and refine the students' code.

Some of the information in this section gets fairly complex as we are now starting to look in detail at information you will need to program the PICmicro. If you are new to PIC programming you may wish to skim through this section and come back to it later you have some programming experience.