Starting a new club.

One of the first orders of business is to get t shirts made that say.

'Oh.Why don't you got tell it to somebody else!'

We're tired of little Mr Peevish's telling us 'Why don't you use a current MCU?'

So if anybody wants to join. You must provide proof you are a genuine enthusiast though.

Ranting about how you too are sick of hearing 'Why don't you use a new FPGA or a single computer on board ?'

will be accepted as proof.

Now I ask you. How can anybody not look at this and not be moved to admiration?

https://www.olimex.com/Products/PIC/Programmers/PIC-PG2/
'

 

Ho hum -- count me out.

 

Papabravo

Got you covered.

Part of the the User's Group code is 'Be tolerant of other's'

We stay busy on the true path to 'PIC Enlightenment'.

We award little medals with the 10 levels of 'Serial and Parallel Port Achievement'.

The have different milestone PIC's on them. 16F84 16F628. 16F1937.

Other medals have PICKit 1 and PICKit 2 and Promate II on them.

Can't forget PICStart Plus.

 

https://www.olimex.com/Products/PIC/Programmers/PIC-PG2/

I have one of those.
But...
I have removed all the serial programmer bits and plug my PicKit3 into the ICSP and use it to program PICs for things that don't have their own ICSP connector.

I also use an ancient desktop with parallel port to run my CNC router. That's because the software is free, not because I love the parallel port.

And I hate with a vengeance the RS232 'standard' which is anything but standard.

I guess that's me out too then.

[Edit] I've got a PicStart Plus somewhere but I've no idea where. I haven't used it since Noah was a lad.

 

What do we get for also having owned and used:
Parallax Downloader - ran baseline PIC code in RAM
PICALC - prehistoric assembler from uCHIP. DOS based, it would lock up the PC on some syntax errors.
PICPRO - PIC programmer with a 1! line RS232 buffer
PROMATE 1 - The first nice programmer from uCHIP - DOS interface
PICMASTER - ICE with ISA board for connection to PC. The first real emulator from uCHIP
ICD - first hockey-puck ICE

I'm old.

 

John

'Parallax Downloader - ran baseline PIC code in RAM'

I found Parallax PIC assembler compiler.This outfit bought it from them.

http://www.tech-tools.com/index.html

'What do we get for also having owned and used:'

Okay. You can be treasurer.

Now. First order of business.Can you find some companies to donate some cool stuff

to raffle off to our members?

Like CCS with their cool classic C compilers that they want $200-450 for.

Bob

 

My T-shirt would read "Why are you still using PICs?"

 

Mr Chips

I think after you attend one of our meetings you will see the light.

I can't tell how many lost souls have come seeking the true path.

They leave with a bounce in their step and a gleam in their eye.

Filled with the confidence and vigor that they will achieve full MCU enlightenment.

 

I still keep my PICkit ONE in my junk box for sentimental reasons. It was the first device to program a few limited devices off the USB bus. I hacked mine with a programming port so I could use it with other breadbords, some of which I also keep.

My first PIC programmer was a home build thing off an ISA(?) card from the days before Pics had a serial programming port: you needed to load then 8 parallel bits at a time. I was happy to toss it as soon as I could.

 

Thank you Ernie

One book from around '96 seems to say all Microchip had was 16C54 and the 16C57.

Then it's using the 'new' 16F84.

THAT sure simplifies things!

Did spot a PICStart Lite for sale and some windowed chips.

Actually it comes with one windowed C chip. A '72 I think.

 

Thank you Ernie

One book from around '96 seems to say all Microchip had was 16C54 and the 16C57.
Then it's using the 'new' 16F84.
THAT sure simplifies things!
Did spot a PICStart Lite for sale and some windowed chips.
Actually it comes with one windowed C chip. A '72 I think.

There was a 16C55 and 16C56 in there with varying memory and pins.

By 1996 uCHIP also had the 17C42/3/4 for 'high end' designs. Some good features, some that made porting code to newer chips a pain but we used a lot of them. I am not sure but I think they inherited the 17 series from GI as well as the baseline stuff.

If you really want to dabble in uCHIP esoterica, you have to get a MTA81010 PICSEE. This was a 16C54 and 24LC01B EEPROM in a single windowed package - two separate chips inside with SCL and SDA connected internally to pins on the '54 chip.

 

For some sad senseless reason I tossed a chip sample i once was offered by someone I went to school with. The chip was the guts of the then popular Simon game. If you added four switches, two seven segment displays, 14 resistors and a speaker you had a serviceable game. I built this up on some perf board and played with this from time to time.

The central device was one of the first microcontroller made by General Instruments in Hicksville NY. The game took all 512 instructions the device was capable of holding, to the credit of the programmer who wrote this thing purely in assembly.

The device used mask programmable ROM, meaning you had to manufacture the device with the same and only code it could ever run.

The reason I regret parting with this old thing is General Instruments eventually sold off the division making these Programmable Interface Devices to a company called Microchip Technology.

Yes, I had one of the very earliest PIC devices from the days that PIC actually stood for something.

 

John Thanks!

'MTA81010 PICSEE' Yes. That is getting pretty obscure. Never heard of it.

As President of the club I feel compelled to grab one of those Picstart Lite's.

'Lead by example.' I believe it would uphold the lofty standards of 'Serial Portdom'.

Actually saw about three kinds of UV Erasers on Ebay.

I think I will allow a decent size block of time to play with them though.

 

Ernie Thank you!

'PIC actually stood for something'.

That's the kind of talk we like to hear!

'Out with the new. In with the old!'

In the Easy PIC'n book it says Microchip had to stop using the phrase PIC because of

a trademark dispute with an outfit in Germany.

The Olimex serial port prototype boards are built like they would survive an atomic blast.

Probably put up with a fair of amount of unintentional shorts too.

Stand by for the announcement of our first Inaugral meeting location.

Probably a pizza place!