ABSTRACT
PIC microcontrollers can be programmed in high-level languages or in their native machine language. Microchip provides two models of their in-circuit hardware debuggers, which they call In-Circuit Emulators, or ICEs. Dozens of PIC programmers are available on the Internet. When Microchip released the programming specifications of the PIC to the public without requiring a nondisclosure agreement, they originated a cottage industry. Assembly language development tools are free from Microchip, while most high-level languages must be purchased from their developers. A more powerful and versatile debugging tool is a hardware or in-circuit debugger. The target device can be a simple reference to the PIC for which the program is written, a more-or-less detailed description of the target system, or a reference to a circuit diagram or board drawing. The ellipses are placeholders for the PIC instructions, assembler directives, macro directives, and macro calls. The PIC microcontrollers contain a special register called the configuration register.
