How did Chuck get started with Programming PICs in Basic?
Chuck Hellebuyck had been working with Microchip PICs for a while but never understood why nobody had created a way to program PICs in Basic. He knew from the early days of computers that the BASIC language made programming so easy, anyone could become a programmer. Then he saw an ad in Nuts&Volts for the Parallax Basic Stamp single board computer module which was Microchip PIC based. He bought one and began playing with it. He quickly found it had serious limitations but was a great platform to learn the basics of microcontrollers. He thought, if Parallax can develop a Basic language for PICs why can’t someone develop a Basic Compiler. He began to do that himself with great agony because his expertise was not in making a compiler. microEngineering Labs released the PicBasic compiler at about the same time, so Chuck dropped his plans and started using PicBasic. PicBasic blew away the Basic Stamp. Chuck soon found himself kicked off the Parallax Basic Stamp email list for mentioning Pic
