Upgrade Karussell

[Peter Pitzeier]

Hello *,

migrating a project from a 16F873 to 16F876A device I seem to have started a Karussell (round-about) that hasn't stopped so far.

Just 2 days ago I was a lucky user of the following development scenario:

- PCM 2.734 (of early 2000 or so)
- PICSTART Plus Revision 5 (of 1999), firmware 2.01
- MPLAB 5.4

Then, short of I/O an mem I wanted to switch from 16F873 to 16F876A device. But the so programmed 876A would not even execute the simplest blink-a-LED code and just stay dead. (I tried in a MC-CAN-development board, which has SDIP28- and SDIP40 sockets). The F873 blinks the LED, the F873 not. Since the CAN-dev.-board provides power and clock for both sockets I knew there's something wrong with the programming of the F876 (although PICSTART always verified succesfully). Maybe, so I thought, it's because the A-type of the F876 is not listed in PICSTART Plus. So I decided to upgrade the firmware of the PICSTART Plus. I took the highest version found in MPLAB 5.40 directory, which was 2.3. From then PICSTART Plus always gave 'Cannot receive' errors and kept reseting. Tried firmware 3.11, same results. Was my '99-PICSTART-Plus too old? It was time to do some web research. Found that there was a new Flash-upgradeable PICSTART Plus. 2 hours later I got it on my desk. I was expecting that it wouldn't work with MPLAB5.40 and didn't get disappointed. Installed 7.1, downloaded the CCSC-plug-in. Since then MPLAP 7.1 keeps telling me that CCSC is not installed. Some research in this forum brought out that my PCM 2.734 is just too old for MPLAB 6+.

So, by the time I'm waiting for delivery of the newest PCM. My work around development enviroment at the time is MPLAB5.40 + PCM2.734 AND MPLAB7.1 + PICSTART Plus Flash upgradable. By the way the F876 is now running as expected AND reproducable not running when programmed with the old setup.

Never change a running system, they say and it's true. I never upgrade just for fun but in this case I had to.

So whenever possible, take care not to stumble into your personal upgrade Karussel.

Right now I'm hoping the I can at least keep may OS (Win ME) ;-)

Greeting from Austria. Peter

[treitmey]

Ouch, WinME?!

[PCM programmer]

Actually the newer OS's such as Win2K and XP are not shatter-proof.
We just tested an eval board from a video chip manufacturer yesterday
and their drivers locked up both Win2K and XP -- I mean, totally locked
them up. We had to press reset to get out of it.

With respect to the upgrade, I have a PicStart-Plus that I bought back
in 1997. It has its own upgrade path, and I took it up to firmware
version 3.11.00. You have to replace the original OTP PIC that's inside
it with a 17C44 which you program with the new firmware. Also there's
a hardware mod that Microchip recommends, to change the Vpp level.
I did that one too.

Then you can use MPLAB vs. 5.70.40 (and probably earlier versions)
and you have full support for the 16F87x "A" chips.

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you did have a full upgrade
path with the existing tools. You can go beyond that and install the
PUM module in the PicStart-Plus, and upgrade to MPLAB 7.xx, etc,
but to get support for 16F876A, you could have done it cheaply.

[Peter Pitzeier]

Firmware 3.11 is now running inside my '99 PS+ and the so programmed F877A parts are alive too. But still I can't do it from MPLAB 5.40 (Cannot receive-err.). If it would work with MPLAB 5.70 then yes there would have been an upgrade path. I knew about the PUM module but it was not available while the new PS+ was.

About the Vpp level mod, where can it be found?

Concerning MPLAB 6+ and PCM: In the CCS FAQ there's a step-by-step explanation of how to plug in CCSC into MPLAB but it's not mentioned which CCSC version is required.

[PCM programmer]