YT Lee
Reged: Oct 16 2003
Posts: 83
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Microchip has a "Master" series
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1928
The cost is very reasonable. Normally, they give you a dev kit. The fee for the session is about the same as the dev kit. Hence, it is a very good deal.
Microchip also has a web seminar
http://techtrain.microchip.com/webseminars/Main.aspx
As for learning Hi-Tech C and PIC, the following web site may help
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/~reese/ece3724/
As for C, there are tons of books.
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Mark Pappin
Reged: Nov 01 2004
Posts: 599
Loc: Brisbane, Australia
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Quote:
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You may be optimistic with those requirements - remember, we are based in Brisbane, Australia.
Yes, but you did mention the possibility of using certified trainers.
Actually, I suggested contacting our Certified Consultants. All of my other comments regarding costs of training courses are based on us providing those courses directly.
I have to take issue with some of your comments:
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you do not state the length
For in-person training courses I asked for per-day costs. I made the tradeoff of not specifying a course-length for online training to simplify the survey - give us some idea how much you'd pay for the most-complex course you'd bother taking online from us, and if necessary clarify the nature of such a course in a posting here.
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or type of training
I thought "hands-on in-person" and "individualized online" along with my previous comments would be sufficient for the purposes of the survey. Please provide details of what descriptions and course content you require - the whole point here, as raised by you, is that we do not currently provide training courses and thus pretty obviously don't have "one I prepared earlier" summaries we can hand out to ask "Is this what you want?"
Since we've seen replies from 3 non-HI-TECH people in the 13 days since my initial query, I thought I'd make it even easier for people to reply (just a couple of clicks on the survey) but so far you are the only person outside the room I'm in who has done so. I live in hope that more of our 5000+ forum members will share their views on this issue.
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You might also consider opportunities for people to gather and discuss items according to microcontroller manufacturer (Microsoft calls these sessions “Birds of a Feather”).
We have such an opportunity running now - we call these sessions the "HI-TECH Software discussion forums". 
Thanks for your comments so far, Bill (and Dan and YT). I'm looking forward to those of other users so that, if there is sufficient demand, we can put together appropriate training material.
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Mark Pappin - HI-TECH Software
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billb
Tester
Reged: Apr 24 2006
Posts: 5
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YT Lee :
Thank you for this information. The link to "http://www.ece.msstate.edu/~reese/ece3724/" is new to me and would be a great review after purchasing the text. As for the Master's, I am disappointed that Microchip has only one per year in the U.S. while they have 3 scheduled for India and China. Maybe I am wrong and missed the others slated for the US, but it seems that they do not value the US market.
However after seeing the poor response to the Survey Mark posted, I guess those of us in the U.S. do not desire the training.
I ramble. The webcasts I have reviewed and was able to learn a few things about Serial and USB communications that I did not know. Also, I have purchased five used texts on ANSI C that have assisted me in relearning the languages sytax.
Thank you once again for the feedback and links.
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Ungenious
Reged: Mar 20 2007
Posts: 1
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I've filled out the survey if it makes anyone feel better. I may be a little bit late though.
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LateDeveloper
Tester - PICC PRO
Reged: Aug 20 2007
Posts: 273
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lol your cheap
I am actually interested in how you come by your figures, I suppose it would depend largely on whereabouts in the world you did the training, but I have know companies charge in the region of £2000 for the first day and £1000 a day thereafter.
The biggest problem with any training course, is that people are always at different levels. Too specific or too general and the course would not be worth it for a specific event.
I am merely talking about the logistics of having training courses. HiTech make damned good compilers and to be honest unless you find a niche in the training market, it would be difficult for HiTech to set up such a thing, without employing a lot more staff.
Maybe an idea would be to have live webcasts on occasion instead.
I did forget to add, that these forums are a great place to learn and get help with specific issues too.
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toybuilder
stranger
Reged: Aug 06 2008
Posts: 9
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While I sympathize that it's a diffcult learning curve to develop on embedded systems (compared to user software development), I think one must be realistic about what toolmakers for this market can realistically provide.
Microsoft has an excellent base of documentation, sure, but that comes from 1) their single-minded focus to extend the Windows platform over the whole world, and 2) paid support by large customer base (individual professional programmers, and corporations) willing to fork over thousands of dollars per year for documentation subscriptions (MSDN) and support.
And, while a book from Microsoft Press on programming in C++ might sell to the average consumer with a PC at home, the same cannot be said for (say) a Hi-Tech Press on developing for a particular microcontroller.
I would bet that for every 1 embedded systems programmer, there are easily 500 "Windows" programmers. It's a lot harder to maintain the same level of quality and volume of
documentation for embedded stuff, too...
It's also not Hi-Tech' direct responsibility to educate customers about the specifics of each processor. That is more the responsibility of the chip vendors. I think the chip vendors, in turn, must work aggressively with the tool makers to make sure the tools work right.
As for not having used assembly or C in a long time, and trying to tackle a project with USB -- whoa, that's a truly big learning curve -- you've got to deal with knowing assembly, and pure "bare metal" C without the niceties of an OS or a software debugger environment, hardware details, AND the Windows USB driver interface (I'm actually going through the learning curve on that).
The complexity difference there is analogous to going from being a professional auto mechanic to being a race car designer. There's a lot more details you'll have to know, and far less documentation of things you'll have to figure out!
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