What is the meaning of development board ??

arunb · Joined: 08 Sep 2003 Posts: 492 Location: India

Hi,

What is the meaning of development board. Is it possible to program the PIC directly from the PC or does the PIC have to be removed and put in a seperate programmer ??

thanks
arunb

dyeatman · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 1934 Location: Norman, OK

Many of the "development boards" have the in-circuit serial programming (ICSP) connector on the board and you can program the PIC right on the board. A few even have the entire programmer circuit on the development board.

With the ICSP connector you still have to have an external programmer/interface between the PC and the board like the ICD2 or the ICDU-40 or ICS-40. If you want to buld your own ICSP interface there are a number of them out there to choose from.

treitmey · Joined: 23 Jan 2004 Posts: 1094 Location: Appleton,WI USA

I think most people on this forum use a programmer or a boot loader.
So

PC connects to a programmer. ((programmer is ICD2 or CCS_ICD-U40))
programmer connects to target board through the ICD port.

Or

You can re-program a board directly from a PC IF [[IF]] that board has allready been programmed with a boot loader.

To get the ' ' ' FIRST' ' ' boot loader on the PICyou still need a programmer.

MikeValencia · Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Chicago

I figured a "development board" is synonymous with a "demo board". They have enough sample circuits on there to fulfill a "proof of concept".

Before the days of ICSP in PICs, your development/demo board obviously didn't have rj11 jacks to program the chip in-circuit. But it was still a development board.

kender · Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 768 Location: Silicon Valley

The meaning of a developemnt board is to charge you a few hundred bucks.

arunb · Joined: 08 Sep 2003 Posts: 492 Location: India

Hi,

Is it OK to have a development board and not have ICD or ICSP ,and no on board programming ???

thanks
arunb

kender · Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 768 Location: Silicon Valley

SherpaDoug · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 1640 Location: Cape Cod Mass USA

Before flash chips and ICSP it was common for development boards to just have the uC in a socket so you could pop it out to erase and program elsewhere.
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asmallri · Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 1635 Location: Perth, Australia

MikeValencia · Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Chicago

Back in the pre-ICSP days of OTP and UV erasable PICs (e.g. PIC16C72), they also sold boards to develop code on. What were those boards called?

dyeatman · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 1934 Location: Norman, OK

This company sells development boards with the PIC programmer built into the board.

http://www.mikroelektronika.co.yu/english/