Following up on James Newton's enthusiasm for ICD - there's a
cool implementation available here in the UK. The March edition
of Everday Practical Electronics magazine featured an ICD
project. It uses a 16F877 with the top 4K programmed to provide
ICD and serial functions and the remaining 4K for user programs.

Magenta electronics have made a kit which includes PCB, 16F877,
LCD, stepper motor, relay and all other components (including
power supply and serial lead!). This is amazing at 34UKP (ie
c50USD)

I built mine last weekend - have had little time to play but it seems
to work OK - you develop as normal on MPLAB and then use the
provided windows PC software to download to the 16F877.
Breakpoints and single step seem to work OK.Setting watches and
changing registers works fine also.  Negative points -  no 'step over'
for subroutines and occassionally the 'stop' function returns a
comms error (this could of course be a hardware problem due to
bad building :-)    ).

Should anyone be tempted check that Magenta include a
photocopy of the original article - they didn't with mine (didn't
matter as I had it anyway) but would be difficult to build without it.
Probably an oversight as I know they've been busy meeting the
demands for this kit.

BTW Everyday Practical Electronics is available on line in PDF
format for 9.99 USD which is annoying since I subscribed to the
paper version at 4 bucks a copy!

look at www.epemag.com/FRMPROJ.HTM and
www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/0300.htm for details of the project
and www.magenta2000.co.uk/kits/900.htm for details of the kit.

Standard disclaimer - nothing to do with this project, kit or mag etc.


Brian Jones
Brian E Jones
Centre for Java Technology
IBM HURSLEY