In message  <3.0.32.19970525115416.00685680@172.16.1.1> PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
 writes:
> At 01:35 PM 5/25/97 +0100, you wrote:
> >Hi
> >I have had a great idea (I think!) for a PIC programmer.  I have recently
> >posted about programmers for the psion and acorn without much success but
> >this might change things.  The one thing most computers, PDAs etc have (or
> >is available as shareware) is a terminal program.  If a simple set of
> >commands were developed where the hex file was merely sent (either as text
> >or a xmodem protocol or something) after a few configuration details to the
> >programmer then it could work with almost anything without having to make
> >specialist software.  This would probally need a decent PIC to implement a
> >file transfer protocol and store the hex file but I think it could be done
> >if someone has the time to do it (not me at present - it's school exam
> >season!).  What do you think?
> >
> >
> >Tim
> >
> >p.s.  A further development could be a programmer with assembler built in!
> >
>
> I've been looking at a similar solution for the 8088 protable that i
> typically use to program my pic16c84's.  The com port runs to slowly to
> send the proper clock signals to the pic and the parallel port doesn't work
> properly anymore.  Besides that, being too cheap to BUY a commercial
> programmer, I'm looking at how to program a pic16c84 with another 16c84.
> I'll let you know if it gets anywhere.

I don't think using a standard comms program would be a good idea, as Tim
mentioned it would need a fairly powerful PIC to implement. However if you
write programmer software to feed out via the serial port a 16C84 would be
more then powerful enough. All it has to do then is read a byte or three,
process the command, and generate the timing delay between individual
programming data bytes. It could then reply via RS232 to confirm the required
time has passed to the main program, which would then send the next command.

Anyway, this has all been done already by a company called Keymaster, their
programmer is designed to program either 16C84/16F84 or ISO cards containing
these processors. If you do a web search on 'Keymaster' there are details
available, including the PC Windows software for download. A friend of mine
odered one of these, and the processor on the programmer was a 16C84.

If anyone wishes to create such a progammer, I would be happy to convert my
programmer software to work via the serial port - I'm currently converting
my parallel port version to run under Windows. I now have an early Windows
version running, and if anyones interested I'll put it on my web site for
dwonload - it's not finished yet, but it does work!.

Nigel.

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