Alternatives to getting a plain
PICmicro chip directly from
Microchip or from a Microchip
distributor:
-
a pre-designed small PCB designed for prototyping that includes a PICmicro
and a few other commonly-used parts: often much faster to get to a finished
product than starting from scratch.
-
"clones": code-compatible microprocessors, sometimes with a feature or two
unavailable in the ones from Microchip
-
functionally similar microprocessors
Small PCBs (is there a better term than "small PCB" for the sorts of PCBs
that are specifically designed to be hacked and modified -- they have pins
that are perfectly aligned to be plugged into a solderless breadboard, or
they have a prototyping area on-board?)
-
BASIC Stamp
-
C Stamp
-
OOPic: The Object-Oriented PIC. The "ooPIC-S"
board is a PCB with a large prototyping area and a PIC16F877. The "ooPIC-C"
is a tiny stamp-like PCB that plugs into a solderless breadboard. Both hold
a PIC16F877, a Flash memory chip, 3 LEDs, a voltage regulator, and a RS-232
tranciever). Both run the "ooPIC III+" firmware.
-
Protean Logic TICkit -- The module
is directly programmable in a library-centric Functional Basic
-
BeagleBoard PIC
module plugs into standard solderless breadboard
-
-
PIC-01 Development Board
-
the HOODMICRO
-
"modular PIC based single board computers
(SBC) and expansion boards."
-
SerReg (FIXME: is this really a
development board?)
-
Dontronics sells a variety of PIC-oriented
proto
boards and
development boards (as well as development boards for several other
popular microprocessors).
-
-
LiniStepper designed to drive
stepper motors
-
Communitary Universal Microcontroller
Programmer
-
iRX Prototyping Board:
a simple but malleable prototyping board for PIC based projects. It features
the EEPROM programmable PIC16F84A, an MAX233 for RS232 port and infrared
I/O. About half of the board is an empty prototyping area. Compare: Atmex.
-
UBW (USB Bit Whacker) by Brian
Schmalz ... "The UBW board ... contains a Microchip PIC USB-capable
microcontroller, headers to bring out all of the PICs signal lines (to a
breadboard for example) ... costs about $15-$20 to build and is powered from
the USB connection. ... All tools used to design this project are free, and
the design is open to anyone to use for whatever they wish. Please build
your own and improve upon it! If you don't want to build your own, you can
buy them assembled and tested ... SparkFun hosts a USB forum where the UBW
is a common discussion topic."
-
[FIXME: there may be a few more mentioned at
that ought to be listed here.]
-
...
-
Bread Board Power Supply -- a tiny little board that fits between a
wall-wart and plugs into a solderless breadboard to supply regulated power.
It accepts a wide variety of wall-warts because its full-wave rectifier and
LM317 handle a wide range of AC and DC power supply, and its screw terminal
headers let you plug in the wires.
-
...
-
Boarduino aka
solderless breadboard Arduino clone (plugs into solderless breadboard;
based on Atmel AVR ATmega168)
-
Tutorial: SparkFun ProtoShield Assembly + Use shows how to use the
ProtoShield development board with a Arduino
-
A huge list of Makezine
kits, a few of which ("Daisy MP3 player", some of the RepRap projects,
"The IR-ritator", etc.) use PICmicros, a few others that use Atmel AVRs
(TV-B-Gone, etc.), one that uses a Freescale processor ...
-
BlinkM, which can be used
as a AVR ATtiny45 development board
-
Atmex: An entry-level
Atmel Experimentation System. less than $10; includes Atmel ATtiny2313; a
DB-9 and MAX232 for serial communication and downloading new programs (using
a bootloader); LED. About half of the board is an empty prototyping area.
Meant to be better than the iRX board.
-
...
-
"nanocore12", much like the BASIC Stamp but using a Motorola/Freescale HCS12
instruction set www.nanocore12.com
technological
arts
-
...
-
"the Hammer": a Samsung S3C2410A ARM9 CPU board in a 40-pin DIP package,
ready to plug into a solderless breadboard. Pre-loaded with Linux.
See Open Circuits: demo board
for another long list of these small PCBs.
Clones:
-
SXs,
Ubicom SX processors
are pin and binary code compatible with the PIC line and run at 50 and 100
MIPS (not just MHz, MIPS!) They are
drop in
replacements and you can even code for them with MPLAB. Very
Recomended.
-
http://www.holtek.com
-
Thomas A. Coonan
CPLD IP for PIC!
-
http://opencores.org/project,risc16f84
Clayton, John: "The risc16f84 project is intended to provide a small, easy to use microcontroller in Verilog."
-
http://opencores.org/project,lwrisc
wei, Li: "ClaiRISC is a soft MCU core which runs PIC 12bits instruction [similar to the] PIC16F57 ... Written with verilog".
-
http://opencores.org/project,minirisc
(was:
http://www.opencores.org/cores/minirisc/
)
This is a Mini-RISC CPU/Microcontroller that is compatible with the
PIC 16C57 from Microchip.
-
http://opencores.org/project,jmr16f84
Rodríguez, Julio: "JMR16F84, PIC Microcontroller Compatible"
-
http://www.summitsoftconsulting.com/Pic10IpCore.htm
"a RISC CPU IP core compatible with the Microchip PIC10F200-series of microcontrollers."
-
http://opencores.org/project,risc5x
MikeJ: "risc5x ... A small RISC CPU (written in VHDL) that is compatible with the 12 bit opcode PIC family."
-
http://opencores.org/project,ppx16
Wallner, Daniel: "ppx16 ... Microcontroller core compatible with 16C55 and 16F84. ... VHDL implementations ..."
-
100% compatibles?
http://www.g-alantic.com.tw/icproducts.htm
Other popular, functionally similar microcontrollers:
-
The Atmel AVR ATtiny2313 (replaces the
now-obsolete AT90523131200) is like the PIC processor line
-
Freescale ...
-
Some ARM processors (32-bit) cost less than some 8-bit PIC processors.
See the Low Cost Micro Controller Development
Systems for some comparisons of these microcontrollers.
See also: