Hello to all. I heard about GCB on the back shed forum which is centered around the Maximite and Micromite. I have been using the "micromite" since beta and really enjoyed the experience. I wanted to use a smaller pic chip for a couple of projects where a 32 bit 28 pin chip would be totally overkill and GCB seemed to fit the bill. After perusing the manual a bit, it seems that GCB is pretty awesome, so I decided to download GCB and see what could be done. So I just received a few pic12f1840 8 pin chips that seem to be very capable for what they are. Hooked up the old pickit3 and programmed the flashing led program....
All's I can say is YEAH!!! It worked right out of the gate. Now it's time to learn and play. I am very excited about how much can be done with an 8 bit chip using GCB and will definitely enjoy this new journey!
Thanks to all involved with this great free software!!!!
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Hi. I am also a first time GCB user and have been spending the last few days figuring out how to use my PICKit 1 to work with this platform. I finally succeeded today!
Why a PICKit 1, so old, you say!? I purchased it, originally, as a programmer for use with a book on programming PIC's even though I knew it was an older programmer at the time. It was what the author of the book used in the making of the book so I figured that would be the easiest route. Unfortunately, once I started to get into the book I found that C was beyond my comprehension as there was such a steep learning curve. No lead-ins on much of anything so, I dropped it for a while.
I knew I had these PIC's sitting around for a while, a couple of years, in the meantime have been learning Arduino and that sort of thing and slowly the C language. Then I saw an article on setting up an IDE for GCB in Nuts And Volts. I figured why not try it, pulled out the PICKit 1 and made sure I could at least write a hex file to an IC and started to set things up. The article used at least a PICKit 2 and also the TextPad environment. It all seemed to look good as I set it up but I could not get it to produce a hex file so I could test it using the PICKit Classic 1 programmer.
At that point I thought I might as well try one of the IDE's suggested on the GCB site and chose SynWrite. After looking for the original link, probably was on the Source Forge site, I think if you install the GCBC Starter Kit Software you will end up with the IDE I ended up with. I will have to install it to see if it still works.
One of the problems I had was figuring out what all the numbers meant in the BASIC program. As much of the documentation is for the CHIPINO, it took some reading but the info is there. I also had to read the first part of the PIC's spec sheet to find out things like PIC's internal clock speed and the names of the ports and where they are located. The PICKit 1 also had a small development section so I had to look up the schematic for that (in the PICKit 1 Flash Starter Kit Overview PDF).
It also took a while to figure out where some example programs could be found that I could alter so I could program some of my own PIC's. I have some 12F675's, 16F684's and 16F59's. Using the 16F684's is the easiest as they have ports instead of GPIO's - less figuring out (only at this point do I now think all I have to do is sub in GPIO# for portx.#).
Sample Projects (http://www.greatcowbasic.com/sample-projects.html) is the place to start.
I would like to write some tutorials for my setup and intend to build a PICKit 2 clone to become more current. Fortunately, I know somebody with a later style PICKit so I should be able to make one.
If you want to know a little more about this process, reply here or whatever the process is on this forum.
Once you get past the initially steep but, short learning curve, you should be programming in no time.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hello to all. I heard about GCB on the back shed forum which is centered around the Maximite and Micromite. I have been using the "micromite" since beta and really enjoyed the experience. I wanted to use a smaller pic chip for a couple of projects where a 32 bit 28 pin chip would be totally overkill and GCB seemed to fit the bill. After perusing the manual a bit, it seems that GCB is pretty awesome, so I decided to download GCB and see what could be done. So I just received a few pic12f1840 8 pin chips that seem to be very capable for what they are. Hooked up the old pickit3 and programmed the flashing led program....
All's I can say is YEAH!!! It worked right out of the gate. Now it's time to learn and play. I am very excited about how much can be done with an 8 bit chip using GCB and will definitely enjoy this new journey!
Thanks to all involved with this great free software!!!!
Post back if you run into any problems.
Folks on the forum are pretty helpful.
Hi. I am also a first time GCB user and have been spending the last few days figuring out how to use my PICKit 1 to work with this platform. I finally succeeded today!
Why a PICKit 1, so old, you say!? I purchased it, originally, as a programmer for use with a book on programming PIC's even though I knew it was an older programmer at the time. It was what the author of the book used in the making of the book so I figured that would be the easiest route. Unfortunately, once I started to get into the book I found that C was beyond my comprehension as there was such a steep learning curve. No lead-ins on much of anything so, I dropped it for a while.
I knew I had these PIC's sitting around for a while, a couple of years, in the meantime have been learning Arduino and that sort of thing and slowly the C language. Then I saw an article on setting up an IDE for GCB in Nuts And Volts. I figured why not try it, pulled out the PICKit 1 and made sure I could at least write a hex file to an IC and started to set things up. The article used at least a PICKit 2 and also the TextPad environment. It all seemed to look good as I set it up but I could not get it to produce a hex file so I could test it using the PICKit Classic 1 programmer.
At that point I thought I might as well try one of the IDE's suggested on the GCB site and chose SynWrite. After looking for the original link, probably was on the Source Forge site, I think if you install the GCBC Starter Kit Software you will end up with the IDE I ended up with. I will have to install it to see if it still works.
One of the problems I had was figuring out what all the numbers meant in the BASIC program. As much of the documentation is for the CHIPINO, it took some reading but the info is there. I also had to read the first part of the PIC's spec sheet to find out things like PIC's internal clock speed and the names of the ports and where they are located. The PICKit 1 also had a small development section so I had to look up the schematic for that (in the PICKit 1 Flash Starter Kit Overview PDF).
It also took a while to figure out where some example programs could be found that I could alter so I could program some of my own PIC's. I have some 12F675's, 16F684's and 16F59's. Using the 16F684's is the easiest as they have ports instead of GPIO's - less figuring out (only at this point do I now think all I have to do is sub in GPIO# for portx.#).
Sample Projects (http://www.greatcowbasic.com/sample-projects.html) is the place to start.
I would like to write some tutorials for my setup and intend to build a PICKit 2 clone to become more current. Fortunately, I know somebody with a later style PICKit so I should be able to make one.
If you want to know a little more about this process, reply here or whatever the process is on this forum.
Once you get past the initially steep but, short learning curve, you should be programming in no time.
Great feedback.
Have a look at the newly released demonstration code, https://sourceforge.net/p/gcbasic/discussion/demonstrationcode/thread/96889229/#794c