Learning more about PIC

A few comments about the PICkit 2 learning experience.

There's a slight bit of polish that could be applied to the example code.

  1. A few redundant instructions, such as

    • Extraneous operations setting register pages

    • In A-to-D examples, the data sheet seems to say the 5 microsecond settling time is needed only when changing the input source, not for every conversion, as in the examples

    • For the 5 microsecond interval, a few of those microseconds are covered by the non-NOP instructions before the conversions

  2. In one of the variable-speed rotating bits examples, the carry flag is not explicitly cleared when it needs to be clear. When I modified the example to change the sign of the pot setting-to-delay conversion, I would sometimes set the carry, putting extra bits into the display. Took me a good fifteen minutes to debug that.

  3. I think a few extra instructions are wasted using the W register and an explicit move to the file register when the file register destination could be used instead

I also got bitten by the issue mentioned briefly in the PICkit 2 release note: if you program the examples from the IDE, the IDE forces the line controlled by the push-button low, meaning the push-button examples fail to work, unless you program the device from the dedicated programming application and the .HEX file produced by the IDE.

I am slightly disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any visible progress getting the PICkit 2 with version 2 firmware to work under Mac OS X.

Also, I find a real lack of documentation of the PICkit 2 "Debug Express" support for in-circuit debugging. This may be because Microchip doesn't want to undercut sales of the MPIDE 2 hardware. I think, however, one can use a combination of the AC162061 (containing an ICD version of the 16F690) and AC164110 (to convert the ICSP six-pin interface to the modular plug used by the usual ICD interface) to do in-circuit debugging of 16F690 applications with the PICkit 2, at an additional cost of about $50.

I've started sketching out some ideas for interfacing the Symbolics keyboard on a dedicated page.

[UPDATE: Microchip does, after all, document the PICkit 2 Debug Express hardware requirements (scroll down a bit to see what I missed before.) I ordered the combination even before I found the document, and when the backorder is filled, I will be giving it a try myself.]

[UPDATE: Jeff Post announced that he releasing alpha code supporting v2 firmware for the PICkit 2 on Linux/Mac OS X]

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