Chameleon-PIC Nurve Networks, Chameleon-PIC Datasheet - Page 248

• 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

34.1 Advanced Concepts and Ideas
There is so much you can do with the Chameleon, I don’t even know where to begin. But, some of the things you might
want to try are:
35.1 Demo Coder Applications, Games, and Languages
When developing any product we always like to give a select few master programmers the hardware early to see what
they come up with. Not only is this a good way to find potential bugs in the hardware, but it’s interesting to see what some
of the best programmers in the world can do with it. For this release of the Chameleons we have a couple applications
that will be very useful to you.
35.1.1 Chameleon BASIC by David Betz
The Chameleon BASIC is a complete compiled BASIC that runs on both the Chameleon AVR and PIC platforms (Figure
35.1 shows an example of a “Life” cellular automata running written in BASIC. You write your programs on the PC with
and editor then download to the Chameleon. The Chameleon runs a VM (virtual machine) that executes the compiled
byte-codes. You can find the latest copy of BASIC on the DVD here:
Simply locate the newest directory version and everything you need to get BASIC up and running is in there including
documentation, the compiler, examples, etc.
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Using the Propeller as the Master and writing a driver on the PIC chip, so the Propeller can use its resources,
peripherals, etc.
The Propeller has a local 8-bit port, you can use this for anything. One idea that is really easy to implement is
adding a micro SD card adapter to it. Sparkfun sells a little adapter that is mounted on a right angle header, that
will plug right into the 8-bit Propeller port. You can then get a SD card object, add some messages to the master
control program driver, and presto you have a FLASH hard drive you can access from the PIC chip.
Networking the Chameleons together. The Chameleons are so small and powerful, a cool idea would be to
network 4-8 of them together each generating video, VGA, but being controlled by a “super-master” unit to do
something in unison.
Creating a Arduino Shield adapter board. The Chameleon (both AVR and PIC) have similar I/O headers to the
Arduino, but due to physical constraints they are different. A cool piece of add on hardware would be a daughter
board that mounts on top of the Chameleon to make it 100% I/O compatible with Arduino shields.
DVD-ROM:\ CHAM_PIC \ SOURCE \ BASIC
Figure 35.1 – A BASIC “Life” program running on the Chameleon.
© 2009 NURVE NETWORKS LLC “Exploring the Chameleon PIC 16-Bit”
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