Hi Gang,

Thanks for the feedback on the PicPocket.

It would appear that it could do with a few more refinements, so I may
hold off a bit longer and implement them now rather than later.

Goodbye 16F873 - Hello 16F876. Got some coming today.


Roman Black wrote:
>
> Sounds nice! Will it also beat the pictstart plus time
> for programming f876 and f877??

The data transfer is quite fast, but you still have a minimum
programming time to deal with, especially on flash chips.

"Severson, Rob" wrote:

> The thought is to make a reasonable gang programmer by chaining these. No
> one else has done this with reasonably priced PIC programmers. I'd be a boon
> to small production runs.
>
> What do you think?

Good idea, I'll see how the hardware/software fits together.

David Covick wrote:
> How about a software key that allows so-many programmings of chips before a
> lock-out on the programmer.  Then a fee has to be paid to purchase a new
> quantity of programmings...........

Maybe a password for the operator to protect the code. The data in the
EEPROMs can be encrypted.


Andrew Kunz wrote:
>
> Tony,
>
> Is this production-voltage levels, or hobbyist only?

I can make it operator programmable levels if there is interest.


James Newton wrote:
>
> I'd be interested in having some minor ability to stimulate a target circuit
[snip]

A good idea, but hard to implement in practice. (especially pocket size)


Dan Michaels wrote:

> The two biggest problems I can see are hex file storage and socketing
> for 8-, 18-, 28-, and 40-pin chips. Assuming you are using I2C EEPROMs
> for storage, you'll need a very large one to make this whole idea
> attractive. And the multi-pinout socket problem is always problematical.

Not so, most 12C5xx, 12C6xx, 16Cxxx, 16Fxxx can be programmed from a
single 40 pin ZIF socket. Plus I2C eeproms and 93xxx series, and there
is room for things like pre-programming Dallas 1 wire products.

> Uh oh, "minor" <-- shades of deva vu!!

|-)


Andrew Kunz wrote:

> Two 64K EE's should handle pretty much anything you'd throw at a PIC for a long
> time.

I'm using 2 X 32K serial EEPROMs, 1 for the text data base and one for
the PIC data, I couldn't find 64K ones, do they exist?


"Severson, Rob" wrote:
>
> Also, Tony, if it hasn't been mentioned: Include a header/cable/whatever for
> in-circuit programming. It'd be nice to load this device with a hex file at
> a development machine and walk it over to "production" to program boards.
> Saves walking a floppy around, loading code to a machine, etc.

That's why I was asking about the ISCP the other day :-)

It should also be a boon for non critical in circuit boot loaders.


And I'm sorry guys, it's not MPBLAB compatable. I couldn't fit the exe
into the EEPROM :-)

--
Best regards

Tony

ICmicro's
http://www.picnpoke.com
mailto:sales@picnpoke.com

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