This is a wiring diagram that [Soranne] put together when developing a method of programming PIC microcontrollers using an Arduino board. You can see that he takes care of the 12V issue by ...

Microcontrollers existed before the Arduino, and a device that anyone could program and blink an LED existed before the first Maker Faire. This might come as a surprise to some, but for others ...

and Id actually recommend doing so if thats the first time youve used a microcontroller. Despite sounding rather basic, the sample programs built into the Arduino IDE can help you with the board.

Until recently, Arduino microcontroller users needed to utilize the company's Arduino programming language, which is essentially a subset of the C/C++ languages. Since 2022 however, the company ...