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UNDERSTANDING THE MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY PIC 16F877A: FEATURES OF THE MCU PIC microcontrollers are manufactured by the Microchip Technology Corporation of Chandler, Arizona. We will be using the recommended 16F877A microcontroller in the LAB-X1 board, see Figure 3.1. Not all the features provided in the 16F877A will be addressed in the exercises to follow, but enough […]
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PICBASIC PRO COMPILER INSTRUCTION SET As you can see from the preceding comparison, the PICBASIC PRO compiler pro- vides a much more comprehensive instruction set and is the compiler of choice for serious development work. The mathematical functions are substantially more powerful. It is, of course, also possible to program microcontrollers in assembly language and […]
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PICBASIC PRO TIPS AND CAUTIONS 1. To get context sensitive help, move the cursor over a PICBASIC command, click to set cursor and press F1. 2. All the programs assume the PIC is running at 4 MHz. To change the default setting (for example, to 20 MHz), simply add DEFINE OSC 20 at the top […]
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In this chapter we will learn how we interface an MCU to the real world by first learn- ing how to create outputs with the microprocessor and then learning how to read inputs into the microprocessor. In following chapters we will combine the outputs and the inputs to control the operation of small motors of […]
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CONFIGURING AND CONTROLLING THE PROPERTIES OF THE PORTS The PIC 16F877A provides 33 I/O pins distributed across five ports. Each of the ports has unique capabilities built into it. This chapter discusses the capabilities of each of the ports with special attention to these special properties. The descriptions are cursory and are designed to provide […]
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USING THE A TO D CAPABILITIES OF THE PIC 16F877A A to D conversions will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. There are a number of basic measurements that you can make with the LAB-X1 board by using its analog-to-digital and other capabilities. These form the basis for the inputs that you can […]
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THE PROGRAMMERS microEngineering Labs offers three programmers. One uses the parallel port, one uses the USB port, and the third uses the serial port. The operation of the three pro- grammers is almost identical as far as the user interface is concerned. In this book we will use a USB programmer for all our experiments; […]
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THE POT COMMAND The compiler provides the POT command to make it easy to read the resistive load placed on a pin. See the PICBASIC PRO manual for details. In order to use this com- mand, it is necessary to set up the connection to the Lab-X1 as follows: 1. Set up the MCU for […]
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The Hardware and Software This chapter lets you know what you need in the way of minimum hardware and soft- ware to get started and what you need to do to set it up and get it ready for use. List of hardware and what comes with it N The LAB-X1 board (with software CD […]
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LOADING THE SOFTWARE The following software will be provided with the various components that you will acquire as you learn about using microcontrollers based on the experimental boards provided by microEngineering Labs. N PICBASIC PRO compiler software and book. N USB port programmer (or whatever programmer you are using) software and book N MicroCode Studio […]
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