Beginner, where is list of commands? and what is dim?

[jkdevon]

PS Is there anybody in the Portland, Oregon area familiar with MikrobasicPlus who could help?

[W4GNS]

jkdevon, I agree with your comments, but I'm certain you're aware of this, but I'll throw it your way anyway, I have a look see at the examples and that helps allot, then resort to the manual for any remaining questions, and as a last resort to Google, as I think Collin mentioned, but it's easy to get lost in Google, IMHO. Also sorry to hi jack your thread.

Best Regards - Gary

[ranko.rankovic]

Hello to all,

Thank you for your suggestion jkdevon.

I must thank to all, Colin, p.erasmus and W4GNS. We are aware that our manuals can be better, and we are going to improve this segment of publishing. But as you can see, we need our customers and community members help, and we appreciate it alot in every way of improving and developing.

Best regards

[cymb]

some things never change

ive been gone a while,,seems like i and others have been thru this b4, id love to be able to buy an updated programming manual to study,,like the oft mentioned c-64 of old, a super teaching book.

the old dos/ibm comps came with dos and gw basic books that were very helpful but even so, most of each page was white space that could have been used fot one more example.

of course the reason that some of us are reluctant to use the forum for our dumb question it ,being chopped off by the guys who know the answers and like to make us feel stupid or lazy.

i love to read if i can find the book,,,but there is none, the guy who copies the style of the c-64 will sell many, me first!!.

and last,it does seem a simple request for a list of words, and a list of error messages, but alas it aint gonna happen
tom

[jkdevon]

Thanks for the comment. It seems I am not the only one to have asked for a list of the Basic commands. It seems like common sense to me. I think MikroElektronika is going to be a major force in PIC technology. The EasyPIC6 demo board is just the best available, and I am sure the compilers are fine. It is just the amount of time we have to waste looking for things. I think the list of commands should be on page 1.

The management seem to be excellent, they must be to have come up with the products they offer, so I am sure they will edit/modify the manual and Quick Reference.

I am impressed with this forum, which has friendly and helpful contributors, thanks.

[Uman]

I purchased MikroE Basic because of the rich content of this forum, books, manual, customer support and feature rich compiler plus the dev boards are the best I have seen. I am evolving from programming PLC's and was able to learn programing them with moderate effort. This is my second attempt to learn MikroE basic and basic compiler. I am still struggling with beginner basic questions and apparently so are others. MikroE manuals and books do not prepare the absolute beginner with the information required to move forward - step by step.....I know, that was not their intent.

I am a mech engineer and question every detail of each line of the code instruction. It looks like abstract alien hieroglyphics to me, but I know there is logic and reason to it; I am just not aware of the meaning of each nuance. And that is what gets me the most....those unexplained nuances. I would gladly pay MikroE to offer a beginners introduction course, book or even better.... a webinar training course.

You know, I don't know much about compilers, but I like what I see and know what MikroE can do. I plan to stick with this for a bit longer, but I am starting to feel discouraged again.

Yes, I have Verle's book and all other publications and read the examples....but I am a mech engineer.

I suspect a large number of newbies and mech engineers fall through this knowledge gap and never succeed or recover....ouch!

MikroE please fill the gap.

[cymb]

i enjoy this on a part time basis as a hobby ,so i have difficulty keeping up.

i think a "compile LITE", like the old tiny basic would be a good way to get beginneers
off the ground. i feel overwhelmed by the the power of the pro version, but it is too much
for mer to master. ive always felt good with hardware and even basic and some assm
but the compiler is too much for me.

i would like to sell my license if that is proper and possible.

the sample is plenty for me..

[Uman]

MickroE website and their books do not provide the beginner with consolidated information to quickly initiate and advance in Basic programing. Ya there is a wealth of information here, but explanations of subtle stuff is frequently omitted. I could spend days researching and studying, but I can't afford inefficient use of time...I need to be productive as soon as possible.
I am just stating there is a problem here and beginners do not have complete detailed consolidated information to effectively grasp this stuff efficiently....because of this many beginners give up on the demo version and MikroE looses revenues.

Are there any training aids out there that fill this gap?

Am I alone in this observation?

Sorry to have hijacked this thread, but I think it is consistent with the subject matter.

[p.erasmus]

Jeff

Let me try to explain you the road map for getting into working with microcontroller,
I myself is not a trained Electrical engineer, my studies was in mechanical engineering 15 years ago
10 year ago I started with microcontrollers and embedded programming!
with that said

emebedded world consist of a couple of elements
(1) micro or logic system
(2) the language use to program the micro
(3) the electronic circuits around the micro

Let us look at each of these 3 basic elements
the micro consists of hundereds of modules bits and pins which you as a programmer must understand and know how to use them
in the progrmming language of your choice
this means you need to know Basic as you decided to use basic , so you have to learn basic language for this you can get yourseldf any
book on the basic language ,and this brings me to mikroE they are a tool provider although they are kind and supply reference books to basic language
it is not their job to give training in basic(no compiler provider does this).(they supply more information as any other tool company and you can take a look
at TI,Infineon ,Tasking,IR ect
To understand the micro you must read the datasheet the tool provider can not teach you how the USART module works and which bits needs to be set
the datasheet tells you this and for this mikro is trying to help people as they saw there is a lack of understanding for the datasheet,they published books
in very basic form more basic you can not exaplain the micro ,this is also not the job of the tool provider to teach you the micro this the user must put in a huge effort to learn the micro
and I know this is not easy you have to read ,program each and every module to really understand how these things work.
here also mikro has made a huge effort they provide libraries to use and in the help file all the function calls are detailed .however you stil need the understand of the module you are trying to program using the library (many compilers just supports the ANSI libraries not so many hardware libraries mikro can not teach each person all the modules in each and every microcontroller it is impossible ,One thing is sure mikro provides much more help to get started as any other Tool provider more they can not do !!
To get started with micro controller programming is not easy and it take time to learn and know the device(you must invest a lot of time )
The quickest way is to get yourself up to speed with the Basic langauge then
take any micro of your choice and start to do small projects with the modules such as ADC,UART,SPI ect and do the examples in the example folder and keep the datasheet next to you and look
what registers needs to be used for each module and post your questions here ,here are many people willing to help ,however as they now how hard it is to learn these things,they help if they see that you are trying to help yourself but many people around here critisizes mikro but they post no code of there own so how shall they learn if they are always waiting for other people to give to them complete code examples for their needs ,

The long and the short of this is in my humble opinion
expecting mikro to give caurses in the languages and in the argitecture of the micros is just not do able the amount of different microcontrollers are to much and the many types of applications that can be done is also to big,they can only try to give basic reference books as they are doing and ther rest is up to the user to do dig into datasheets ask question post code problems and learn from others,
People must clearly understand what is the part of the tool provider and what is the part of the user !!
Hope this helps you and please post your problems in the forum and use the forum you will learn more in 1 month in the forum than in any book
Peter

[oldmetalbasher]

just a small comment
we are all using english here and there are many variations acording to which country we originate from and what sounds normal to some is abrasive to others so lets try to think about how others will read our posts.
The way some examples are writtern i find i need to think hard about them to try and understand what the authour is trying to say, that does not make them right or wrong.
in the same way there are several versions of basic , i learnt quick ms quick basic many
years ago and got quite good at it, later i used visual basic but its about as usefull as a chocolate tea pot when trying to use mikroe basic so as i see it mikroe is the only valid source of information for the beginner if he is to avoid getting confused .
Yes i am very pleased with every thing i have purchased from mikroe but ease to learn no it is not and some times very simple explanations are called for when you just can't see something that is dead easy to the trained eye.
kind regards to all.
john

[p.erasmus]

mikro supply a reference manual for Basic which has all the constructs, Loop, declerations in
every thing is in there what do the people need more

Dim in ms is the same as Dim in VB.net or any basic
for X = 0 to 30
next x
is the same in mikro basic ms VB 6 ot Vb.net

if then else end if
is the same in all Basic languages

x = 50 is the same in all basics
select case end case is the same in all basic languages


You people expect the compiler to teach how to use each microcontroller module example
you want that the Tools tels you to use the ADC on a PIC 18 you need to set the ADCON1 register as digital pins then you need to set the pin to which your signal is connected to an input
and then it needs to tel you to read the ADRESH and ADRESL registers and combine it to a 10 Bit word to get the corresponding digital value and on top of that you expect the Tool to teach you how to combine the 2 8 bits values to have 10 bit word !!to do this is not the task of the tool it is the task of the Datasheet of the device which give you the information which registerd to use for the ADC and how to set them up and you as the beginner or user or programmer should use the datasheet as you support to the compiler tool not the other way around and you can argue as you want nothing will change this fact
it is been done in this way by all Tool manufacturers it is only mikroE that is supply all these additional information
How can you expect that the compiler must teach or show you all these different setups of the modules when there are well over 350 different microcontrollers each with different modules and functions and features please you guys must get real dont expect the impossible from mikroE if nobody else see their way to do this,
Because of the vast differences in micro's Microchip is makeing family reference manuals with all the data inside tell me how will mikro include these mega bytes of data in the compiler
after all mikroE does not design the micros they make tools for it so guess what they also use the Datasheet to create the libraries which the mikroE customers refuses to use they want only 1 document multi puropse training aid and magic tool to automatically create the application code and all of this at a price below 200 dollers from mikroE
if you guys expect everything from mE then you guys are haveing the wrong hobby change it then but dont blame the tools if you are looking at the wrong places for the information
and then you still want to prove to mE how it should be done if they already do 100% more then any other compiler developer if you guys are not happy with the mE compiler please try some other micro's and there tools then you will realize how easy mE is makeing it for you ,other compilers a simple UART they do not have libs for you must do everything in code yourself ,I can only imagine the guys around here which can not get the UART working with a perfect library from mE how they will suffer with out the Lib because then you are forced to use the datasheet not reading a help file as in the mE compiler.

[Uman]

Thank your for your thoughts. I did expect MikroE Basic to teach me the Basic language. I was under the impression MikroE Basic language was proprietary and totally unique, apparently this is incorrect. MikroE just provides the compiler and is not responsible for Basic language training and rightly so. That would be like a mechanical CAD program developer teaching users to be draftsman. So Basic languages are similar and somewhat common among other compilers. MikroE provides the compiler, but users are obligated to become familiar with general Basic structure and syntax. I understand now and will use additional sources for information on the Basic language from general Basic language books and then pickup with MikroE Basic.

Thanks for your patience

[oldmetalbasher]

and all the guy asked for was a little help
hmm seems he wont get it here !

[p.erasmus]

Jeff

You got it and this is exactly the problem with 99% of the people using mE Compiler
they expect the compiler to teach them the language and how the micro functions
it is impossible
I will help as far as I can to get you going very quick I learned basic by using a VB.Net training book
and ask your questions regarding the modules and the examples in the Forum and you will work
with the compiler in no time it is a user friendly compiler
we will help you here in the forum

[p.erasmus]

and all the guy asked for was a little help
hmm seems he wont get it here !

He got helped he understood exactly how it functions which you still dont get
He will work very quick with the compiler He understand were the information is and will be able to help himself in future .