Chameleon-PIC Nurve Networks, Chameleon-PIC Datasheet - Page 109

• Manufacturer Part Number: Chameleon-PIC
• Description: MCU, MPU & DSP Development Tools PIC24 & PROPELLER DEV SYSTEM (SBC)
• Manufacturer: Nurve Networks

Specifications of Chameleon-PIC

• Processor To Be Evaluated: PIC24
• Data Bus Width: 16 bit
• Interface Type: USB, VGA, PS/2, I2C, ISP, SPI
• Operating Supply Voltage: 3.3 V, 5 V
• Lead Free Status / RoHS Status: Lead free / RoHS Compliant

15.2 Microchip Serial Bootloader and TextPad Setup
The Chameleon PIC ships with the Microchip serial bootloader pre-loaded into the PIC’s flash memory. This allows you to
immediately use the Chameleon in bootloader mode allowing for reprogramability without using a PICkit 2 or equivalent in
circuit programming device. In addition to the serial bootloader we can use a normal text editing program such as
TextPad to edit our code and then call a command line batch file that will compile the code and call our serial binary
transfer tool to send the data to the Chameleon PIC. Figure 15.48 shows the relationship between the components of this
setup.
As you can see, the serial bootloader setup is a little bit easier than the MPLAB toolchain setup. In also requires less
hardware. In fact the only required hardware is the PC and a USB cable which can also be used to power the Chameleon
PIC. In this setup we have elected to use TextPad as our text editor, although any text editor could be used. TextPad also
contains the ability to call command line console “DOS” programs and map them to keyboard shortcuts. We will make use
of this feature and describe how to configure the preferences shortly. Since TextPad can call a command line program we
will have it call a DOS batch file that automates a number of operations described below:
Referring to Figure 15.48, you will notice an intermediary program named FlashProg.exe. This is the PC side of the serial
bootloader provided by Microchip. The software has been slightly modified from the original software to fix some bugs and
allow it to open serial ports numbered higher than 10. The modified source code is provided on the DVD-ROM. FlashProg
is simply a console program that takes as input arguments the communications port number that the Chameleon is
connected to as well as the name of the binary hex file to load into the PIC24’s onboard flash. When it’s launched the
software attempts to establish communication with the PIC24 processor and requests the processor’s Device ID. This
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First it will call the PIC24 C compiler to compile all the drivers that we have provided so that you may use them in
your main program.
Second it will call the PIC24 C compiler to compile YOUR main C file.
Next it calls the PIC24 linker program to link your main C file with the drivers. The output of this process is a .cof
file.
The .cof file is not recognized by the bootloader software so we need to convert it to an Intel HEX file format. This
is done with the PIC24 C compiler tool - pic30-bin2hex.exe
Finally the software can be downloaded using FlashProg.exe
Figure 15.48 – The serial bootloader system setup with the Chameleon.
© 2009 NURVE NETWORKS LLC “Exploring the Chameleon PIC 16-Bit”
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