What are PIC microcontroller?

Question

and what do they do, how do they do it, what langauge do they use, and is there a free online tutorial somewhere, can i make'em work with blue tooth or any other wirless singnals, and whats some other cool stuff you can do with'em?

Answer 1

PIC is a microcontroller originally made by Microschip Technology. They come in 8 and 16 bit families. The technology is a bit old.

You can use several languages to program (C Basic, Pascal). You have to buy a development board for the PIC to interface it with a computer.
I found an interesting site with information about the PIC (see link below).

The "Basic Stamp" from Parallax is a more modern version of a PIC with instruction books and programming boards. Radio Shack sells them (otherwise Parallax). Working with a basic stamp is more funt than the original PIC.

Answer 2

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=74
PIC microcontrollers are tiny computers on a chip that are programmed in C and communicate via serial bus and thus have a very small number of pins. They come in a variety of memory sizes and speeds The page above will get you to a tutorial and a bewildering number of options and choices.
If you want something that is easier to use for fooling around, you might look at www.parallax.com which have addon peripherals and are programmed in BASIC.
All micro controllers are programmed by connection to a PC or workstation. The concept of programming them is to put all the related software tasks in the controller and assign peripheral tasks to other controllers - for example, temperature collection might be handled by one controller and motor control by another while the base controller only communicates via serial line with those and does all the decision making and exterior communication.

Answer 3

See Wiki article.