[Tutor] Programming pic chips with python

[Steve Willoughby]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:18:45PM +0200, Humphrey wrote:
> I am new to python and i want to ask if python can be used in electronics like for programming programmable chips like the PIC16F series. I want to used it specifically in power conversion systems like Sine wave inverters and uninterpretable power supply systems

In theory, any language could be used for something like this, but
generally speaking embedded systems like PICs (and I'd say particularly
for the PIC16 series which have very tiny memory storage), it may be
too much to expect the chip to carry a Python runtime inside it.  It
is an interesting idea, though, to either think of some sort of
tiny interpreter or a native code compiler.  

For really time-critical or memory-restrained applications, though,
which is typically the arena in which PICs and similar microcontrollers
exist, people usually program "closer to the bare metal" in assembly
or C.

You may be interested in looking at xwisp, though, as a related topic.
That is a PIC programmer (i.e., software to manage the transfer of
programs into the chip itself) written in Python.


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Steve Willoughby    |  Using billion-dollar satellites
steve at alchemy.com   |  to hunt for Tupperware.