Many thanks for the varied and detailed replies. I've downloaded the PDFs as recommended and I am trying to make sense of the info therein. I do appreciate the replies and I was hoping to be able to embrace some of the information, but ...

I have a question relating to the learning curve - could someone have a look through the following prose and let me know if I should pack it in or persevere please?

Now is the time for me to admit that I have spent at least 3-4 hours most evenings for the last fortnight trying to compile something that I can understand. So far, all I have managed is to modify an example program to get a couple of buttons to latch a couple of LEDs and a third button to switch them off. I estimate a total of about 30 hours of my effort to get to this stage.

I had a choice of PicBasic or C or ASM and I chose what I hoped would be the easiest. I think I made the right choice but I am also beginning to think that even Basic is beyond me.

I have tried drawing a flowchart of what I need - it helped slightly but the fundamental problem is one of understanding the Basic commands. Here are my observations regarding my own dismal progress:

1) Things like (for example) the BUTTON command don't seem to behave the way I expect them to behave.

2)How on earth anyone ever follows more than one for..next loop, especially nested ones, is beyond me.

3) More than one variable? How do you ever keep track of it in your mind, or even by using loads of diagrams and paperwork?

4) Conditionals such as If..then..else doesn't seem to work - I can see the "if" and "then" parts but the "else" seems to be missing in most examples, or at least the "flow" of the program appears incongruous.

There are a dozen applications for PICs that even I can see should be simple to arrive at (relating to MIDI and aspects of analogue electronic music in particular - trigger generators, clock dividers, interfaces and so on) but the time is approaching for me to throw in the towel.

I had thought that I should see some useful prgoress in two weeks ! Perhaps I should invest in some books - can anyone recommend an ideal title for someone who has ZERO programming skill?