James Newton wrote: > > Anything I can do to encourage you to release it open source? You could > still make and sell the PCB and kits, and the source availability would mean > that other people would add functions... making the PCB and kits more > valuable... especially to software (non-hardware) people... I've never actually held back the code in any of my programmers. The chips are never code protected and the HEX files are supplied. Not quite open source though, I admit. So OK, this time I will provide the source code for anyone that wants to modify it. It needs some cleaning up anyway ;-) I imagine not many would worry about the Windows code as there's not much to this in the Pocket's case. The PC just acts as a slave for the Pocket and provides data transfer to and from the onboard EEPROM. It's interesting though, to get a file open dialog on the PC using a menu from the Pocket's LCD. There is only a 'Help' button and an 'Edit' button on the Windows user interface. The Edit button allows you to modify the PIC chip details for the programmer and disassembler. The program also organises all the user chip info and system messages etc. and then assigns them to a list of addresses which saves a lot of access time and ROM space for the PIC. It also shows an image of EEPROM block usage when files are transferred. The Pocket also 'talks' to my other Windows programmer software and it can be used as a normal bench top programmer. I tried auto calibration for the 2V - 6V verifying voltages, (17 of them) but that requires a reference, so a volt meter is now used at the programming socket instead. The PWM only allows accuraccy to around 10-20 millivolts anyway. I recently successfully tested all the new boot programmer functions while connected to a ROMzap board, so what's left is to merge and test the new 18Cxxx code, and finish the help file, which is going to take a little while. The only bug that I am aware of is that sometimes, why is it never always :-(, the code for the FAT that manages the stored HEX files leaves one block flagged as used when it should be unused. One thing that would be nice, which I may work on in the future, is a single battery power supply instead of 2 X 9V batteries. The 24LC256 32K serial EEPROMs are available from Farnell for only $Aus6.00 in one offs. That is only cents dearer than the Microchip distibutor can sell them in tube lots. Amazing. I think I mentioned this before but here is a gif of the finished prototype. This doesn't show the Parallax style header which is now on the right side of the PCB. http://www.picnpoke.com/pcb.gif PS: I just hit 42 today and the missus bought me a bottle of 'Jack' to sip on, so not much will be done tonight :-)) Just as another aside, by old 1200 Harley flathead turned 53 this year. It was this old girl that got me started into PICs when I wanted to give it some 'automatic' advance instead of using a twist grip on the handle bars. The 6V system made things difficult and I ended up using a MAX877 voltage converter driven from 2V or so to provide 5V for the PIC circuit. She's a cranky old dear when her battery gets a bit flat. -- Best regards Tony mICro's http://www.picnpoke.com mailto:sales@picnpoke.com -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.