With the Great Cow BASIC development team putting many hours into reinvigorating the much loved PICKit2 programming application and it younger sibling, PICKit3, I thought this may be a good time to also look at the venerable Low Pin Count Demo Board that was originally available with those programmers.The boards are old now, and becoming hard to find, but Great Cow BASIC has lots of demo and tutorial files, for several devices, that are written specifically for these Boards.

 

 

What many people did not realise, when they bought the initial PICKit, and got the free board, was that the LPC Demo Board was the most cost effective and versatile PIC development board on the market at the time. It has been superseded now by the Curiosity board, but with PICKit2+ and PICKit3+ the good old LPC Demo Board can hold its own even against the Curiosity Board.

 
The Pin Out of the 20 PIN socket is such that it can accommodate not only 20 Pin devices but 14 Pin and 8 Pin devices too.  Those devices can be PIC12, PIC16 or PIC18 giving us a card no bigger than a credit card that can accommodate the vast majority of Microchip’s ever expanding range 8 Bit of Microcontrollers.

 
The enhancements that Evan has made in creating the Plus versions of the PICKit Software makes them even more useful now as even the latest PIC16F18xxx / PIC16F17xxx  series of Enhanced Core devices with, Intelligent Analog and Core Independent Peripherals, are fully supported. In fact with the combination of the PICKit+ Programmer software, the PPS Tool and Great Cow BASIC your trusty old PICKit Programmer and Low Pin Count Demo Board can handle many more leading edge devices than any of the commercial BASIC compilers, and even some flavours of C, all without having to replace your existing hardware or install cumbersome development environments.

 
Rather than worrying about buying a PICKit 4 and a development board you could be having fun learning new devices and peripherals, with the hardware you already have. By working your way through the “C:\GCB@Syn\GreatCowBasic\Demos\Vendor Boards\Microchip - Low Pin Count Demo Board” folder that can be found with the "View Demos" button on the GCBASIC Tool bar you can learn all sorts of tricks. So if you have an old Low Pin Count development Board in the bottom of your draw or parts bin, fish it out, dust it down and put it to use exploring Microchips newest devices.

 
And for those of you who were unfortunate enough to miss out, fear not, we will not leave you behind!

 
Here are two versions of the LPC Demo board that I call LPC BreadBoard, that are 100% compatible with all of the Great Cow BASIC demos too.

 

                                                                                

 

In future articles I will cover Pimping the Low PIN Count Demo Boards to make them even more useful. Show the Design and Construction of a Stripboard Advanced Low Pin Count Demo Board that you can build with bits from your parts bin.

 
A companion Board based on the MCP2221a (I2C/USART to USB Bridge) and I will even explore and Pimp the capabilities of the 28 Pin Demo Board, its Breadboard and it is stripboard equivalents to rival even the Curiosity High Pin Count board.

 
All thanks to PICKit+, and Microchip’s continued supply of DIP packaged devices, the hobby and educational side of Microcontrollers has never looked brighter, whilst the entry level costs in time and cash  has never been lower.

 
Let us spread the word and start a revolution of people learning and creating with Great Cow BASIC.

 
Article by Chris Roper

 
P.S.   For those who requested the 28 Pin Demo Board, here is a taster for you to get started on.