On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Miller, Steve wrote:

> Several good suggestions have been offered for this problem.  Here is my
> two cents.  The cheapest thing to change is software.  I would interested
> in a programming suite of tools geared specifically at the development
> environment.  I would like programming software that does not allow the
> protection bits to be set ever.  This development software would never
> code protect a part.  During development we could use this safe version,
> for customer prototypes and production we could use full featured
> programming software.
>
> Here is an opportunity for all the folks writing programmer software.
>  Make us a version that will never intentionally set the code protect
> bits.  I would gladly pay the cost of a few JW packages just to be sure
> that I did not choose the wrong option.  I know that programming errors
> can occasionally inadvertantly code protect a part.


        That brings me back to one of my original questions.

Can anyone explain the programming sequence of a PIC.

i.e. How much error checking is involved ?

Does the programmer send a special command to access the fuses (so a
programmer could ommit this command and hence prevent hardware errors
accidently setting code protect. ?

Basically Microchip have pretty much ruled out the possibility of a
hardware change so is there anything programmers can do WITH EXISTING
CHIPS to be as sure as possible that code protect doesn't get set.

I realise it isn't too difficult to disable the e.g. -c option on the
command line parser but are there any further steps one can take to stop
accidental hardware 1 -> 0 errors . I.E. never have the chip in a mode
where it could program the code protect bit by only a single bit error.


                                Anyone please ?


>  However,  if we can
> eliminate operator error, I think we can save quite a lot of chips!
>
>
>  ------ Steve
>

                I'm sure some of the shareware writers may have already
taken up this challenge and I reckon this sort of option will probably be
available soon.


                                David.


http://www.csn.ul.ie/~david