C Compilers for the PIC Micro

The PIC microcontroller in its many guises is found at the heart of countless electronic projects and designs (including those from Elektor). Most software developers use brick-by-brick assembly code to write programs for the PIC. However, it is also possible to program these wonderful micros using a higher programming language like ‘C’ which rightly became an industry standard.The tremendous popularity of the C programming language is largely due to it having been designed, right from the start, for better access to the system hardware. Also, C is not a bad performer when it comes to code efficiency. These days, C allows you to develop almost anything for microcontrollers (from the smallest PIC to X-scale ‘monsters’), digital signal processors, operating system programs for Windows or Linux, right up to UNIX and mainframes, not forgetting administrative programs.