What do you think about these answers? Why is there still no core to program PIC using the Arduino platform?

Projects Programming
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Hello, I was wondering why PICs are not as present on the Arduino platform as STM32, so I made a post on the Microchip forum:

https://www.microchip.com/forums/m1212065.aspx

I found some interesting answers, I'll share them here, if anyone has something to add, feel free to comment on the Microchip forum:

du00000001 Says:

PICs are used in masses in industry and automotive projects. (I personally serialized a product that's produced in 8+ million units per year.) All PICs sold to small projects (hobbyists, startups, Kickstarter etc. pp.) together may be less than the number above (how many Arduinos have been produced over the years?)

moser Says:

All in all I agree with you. However, those direct sales numbers are not really an argument over whether it makes sense to give some sort of support for small and hobbyist projects.

The main reason for supporting such projects is, that all those people get used to that platform, those tools and know the products. If some of those people later get into a similar position like you and have the task to design a new product, then this small-project-support could make an important difference. If there are two similar microprocessor solutions for it, they will very likely favor that solution, which they have more experience with. So, if only a small percentage of the people from those small projects later come into such a position and situation, then suddenly providing some support for all those small projects has made a lot of sense.

For the same reason many smaller software tools are available for personal use for free, while the commercial license requires some money. People get used to the software which they use at home. And when such a tool is needed in the company, then the software you have used at home is very likely the first one, which is suggested.

Also it's the same with the support for universities and other schooling. When a company needs to decide which expensive software tool (e.g. for CAD, PCB design, 3D modelling, simulation, ... ) they are going to use, they will also listen to their employees. And when those guys have only worked with one certain tool in university, and that tool is sufficient, then that tool might get favored. Just because the experience is already there.

Therefore, such support for small projects or privat or educational use is more or less some kind of investment, which might or might not pay off. Unfortunately, the effect is hard to estimate, unless you find a way to make surveys to find out why the people are buying your product, and how much their experience from the past did influence the selection process. Also, if your competitors product is just much better, then such small-project/privat/educational support will never be able to make any significant difference.

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The answer to the question in the topic title is that nobody had produced the necessary board and support files, but as this is an open project anyone is free to do so

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How similar are those PIC?
Do they have a common programming and debugging interface?

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https://chipkit.net/
https://chipkit.net/wiki/index.php/Boards

1 Like
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My impression is that Microchip has never been interested in supporting hobbyists. Microchip device programmers and evaluation boards have always been expensive and aimed at industry.

I started in microcontroller development with PICs, but for a long time there were no free compilers of any sort, so all coding had to be done in assembler, or put out a lot of money for a professional C IDE. A big breakthrough for hobbyists was the PIC Basic Stamp, but that was invented and produced by Parallax, a different company.

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Fun Fact - Microchip bought Atmel several years ago.

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The bottom line:

The chipKIT core is a plugin for Arduino-style development environments. It contains all the files you need to start programming a chipKIT™ board with the well-known Arduino API. Included in the package are the API source code, the compiler, board definitions for all the common chipKIT boards, and the programming tools needed to upload your sketch to your desired board. In addition, a number of libraries that mirror the standard Arduino libraries are included: SPI.h, Wire.h, and more. Note that the chipKIT core replaced the need for MPIDE, and as such, the now portable bundle of files easily drops into environments like Arduino IDE and UECIDE.

Now, this is not an Official Microchip supported core. Back in the STM32duino beginnings, the group took the OpenSource work effort of LeafLabs on the Maple and the Maple-Mini and converted that codebase to be compatible with ArduinoIDE 1.5x and beyond (many, many thanks to all those involved.) After STM32duino.com became too big to host inexpensively, it was offered to STM corporate, interest increased internal to the company, preliminary work was done creating a new core from scratch based abound existing STM tools and software. The hobbyist core transitioned into a newly architected core product capable of handling most of the STM evaluation boards. The road was a long one.
The STM Arduino Core supports these boards:
GitHub - stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32: STM32 core support for Arduino

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I think the reason is exactly the same as in the case of the STM8 family - there is no free C++ compiler for these boards (exclude the pic32 family).
The Arduino ecosystem is very strongly tied to OOP and I don’t think that boards without C++ support will be able to successfully integrate into it. I will give an example of STM8 again - the initial support for these boards in Arduino has been around for a long time, but it is very limited and most of the arduino libraries are not portable to these boards, which limits the ability to write programs

The standard disclaimer - it is just my opinion and it may be wrong :slight_smile:

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jremington I agree with you.

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