On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 10:47:53AM -0500, Tim Dallmann wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> First an formost - thanks for this great list - I've been a lurker here 
> for a while now,and I've gathered lots of great knowledge.

Well welcome aboard.

> 
> I've been successful experimenting with various PIC chips so far, namely 
> a few different 16F and 18F chips.  So I thought I would check out the 
> dsPIC line and picked up a pic30f4013.  From what I can tell, the 
> programmer hardware should still work (i have a JDM-based programmer 
> from Olimax) if I use ICSP.  However, the only programming software I 
> can find is a linux based one over at 
> http://homerreid.ath.cx/misc/dspicprg/, and I run Windows (IC-Prog does 
> not yet do the dsPICs).

I guess score one for free software!

> I've also googled and found some commercial products - the ICD2 from 
> MicroChip and the USB programmer from www.mikroelektronika.co.yu.  Both 
> of these are nice, but honestly, I'm trying to do this on  a shoestring 
> budget. Even spending $90USD on a new programmer is putting me back 
>  more than I (or should I say my wife!) would like.

The programmer isn't the issue. It seems to be the same serial programming
interface, just in a different spot on the chip. So if you do ICSP it should
be no problem from the hardware side.

> So - has anyone developed programming software that will work on Windows 
> with the dsPIC and a JDM programmer?

You've missed the beauty of having Open Source software. Homer has already
written all of the code. All you need to do it port it. Why take the time
to reinvent [ and more importantly retest ] the wheel.

So I'll spend a minute talking about porting. MinGW is GNU C/C++ compiler 
used for building Windows executables of Unix/Linux source code. Once
the compiler is set up, it will build a windows executable of most POSIX
applications. Furthermore it will use the Windows standard DLLs for 
implementing most functionality.

Here's a good starting point for MinGW: http://www.mingw.org/docs.shtml

Another tool you'll need is port access. A DLL that's helpful in this
regard is the inpout32.dll for Windows. You can find it here:

http://www.logix4u.net/inpout32.htm

It loads a kernel driver to interface to I/O ports.

Between the two it's probably less than a day's work to get a working
windows console app that will drive your JDM.

>  Does anyone know where I would go 
> to find out the requirements for writing my own (I'm a programmer by 
> trade)? 

I wouldn't do it. Leverage what you've already found instead of starting
over.

> Does MicroChip have any docs on how to do this?

No clue.

BTW Homer didn't put any licensing notices on his code. Drop him an E-mail
and ask him what type of license he plans for his code.

Hope this helps,

BAJ
> 
> Thanks for your help!!
> -Tim
> 
> 
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