Hi Folks,

Been working very hard on upgrading firmware for the WARP-13. One of my
"pet" projects has been porting my firmware over to the picstart plus.

Currently I have an 18F8720 (a little overkill maybe) replacing the 17C44
in the PS+  I have it working for all the serial (only) programmed PICs
(That is all except the 16C5x and 17Cxx(x) families. I do intend to port
the serial EEPROM code as well and even add other (Microchip?!) devices.  ;-)

What I am trying to do is greatly improve on the programming benchmarks,
just as an ego thing but if there is sufficient interest I may go on and
have an adapter PCB made (I am asking around now for someone to do the PCB
as I do not wish to be doing everything.)

Note. I am proposing this as a commercial venture. I am giving away to
picstart plus owners what WARP-13 purchasers have being paying for.

This firmware I am working on is destined for the WARP-13 so WARP-13 owners
should not feel left out. There will be a few mods to do with the WARP-13
so we can use the UART instead of its current bit banged mode. With this
and a couple of diodes and a resistor on the reset pin the WARP-13 will
keep punching with the best of them.

Here is a gauge of my current improvement (using the most extreme example.)

A Program everything and verify on a 18F8720 PIC takes:

PS+  5 minutes 50 something seconds (with MPLAB)
PSW13 < 33 seconds.  (With WARP13.EXE)

There are great improvements with all other PICs and I have not finished yet...

This is with a 1Gig Athlon PC. I believe a faster PC will further improve
the gap as inefficiencies in Windows are apparent. (A hard sell, I know....)

The firmware has a bootloader (of coarse, just to keep BAJ happy) for quick
updates.
I am optimizing the firmware for USB compatibility (packet mode instead of
byte by byte) via the FTDI USB - RS232 bridge.

I hope to have an ICSP mode with modified (programmable) timing and a
single take off point for all ICSP connections regardless of target PIC
pinout. A special cable will identify itself (via pin strapping) to the
picstart plus and ICSP mode with be automatic from there.

The protocol currently is a modified version of the TM4 protocol used in
the WARP-13 Linux driver on my web page however I am looking to put
together a Unified Programmer Protocol (UPP) that is based on the picstart
plus protocol but with a set of extended commands and with all the
inefficiencies removed.
I could assist with drivers for other O/Ses including working with Linux,
um, "enthusiasts."

The problem with cross platform support is keeping everything together and
organized. This is not my strong point. ;-(

So... I have a few questions....

Any "real" interest in this from picstart plus owners?

Any need to support 16C5x and 17Cxxx parts?

Anyone interested in "bird nesting" their own 18F252 to 17Cxxx adapter
(Will do serial programmed pics only due to the lack of I/O)

Anyone willing to help with CAD/PCB if this project is a goer.

I am open for comments at mailto:pspproject@newfoundelectronics.com

Thanks for the bandwidth!

Regards,

Jim Robertson
NEWFOUND ELECTRONICS




______________________________
MPLAB compatible PIC programmers.
NEWFOUND ELECTRONICS P/L
http://www.newfoundelectronics.com
mailto:support@newfoundelectronics.com
______________________________

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