GPICP Users Manual
 Linux Graphical User Interface to PICSTART Plus, Warp-13 and JuPic Programmers
Copyright 2004-2005 by Jeffery L. Post
j_post <AT> pacbell <DOT> net
Version 0.1.0 - April, 2005
GNU General Public License

TABLE OF CONTENTS



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Introduction


Gpicp is a GUI wrapper for Andrew Pines' Linux command-line program picp and for gpdasm by Craig Franklin. Gpicp provides an easy to use GUI environment that allows you to perform multiple operations, such as program several chips with the same or different programs, read programs from PIC processors and save them to hex files, and other functions with the Microchip PICSTART Plus, Newfound Electronics Warp-13, and JuPic programmers. The graphics library used in gpicp is SDL by Sam Lantinga.

Picp is now maintained by Jeff Post, and the latest versions of picp and gpicp can be downloaded from http://home.pacbell.net/theposts/picmicro.

Many thanks to Andrew Pines, Craig Franklin, and Sam Lantinga for producing great free software upon which I could build gpicp.

Thanks also to Jim Robertson of Newfound Electronics, who generously donated a Warp-13a programmer and technical advice so that picp and gpicp would work with both the Warp-13 and PICSTART Plus programmers. And a special thanks to Wayne Patterson who has gone above and beyond the call of duty beta testing the code with the Warp-13 programmer.

Many thanks to Adam Jurkiewicz, who donated a JuPic programmer. JuPic has turned out to be an excellent replacement for the no-longer-available Warp-13 programmer. I highly recommend the JuPic.


Screenshot:
Gpicp user interface with X11 (appearance may vary somewhat with other window managers)



The gpicp screen is divided into four regions. The main menu is the topmost two yellow lines. Some buttons in the main menu bring up sub-menus when you click on them. For example: clicking on the Serial Port button will bring up a list of available serial ports to which the programmer may be connected. The user must have read/write permissions for the selected serial port. It is not recommended to run gpicp as root, rather set the port permissions using chmod.

The next three dark gray lines are status outputs. They show the firmware version of the programmer, the file selected (if one has been selected), the serial port to which the programmer is connected, and the particular PIC device currently selected.

The light gray line following the status outputs shows the current values of the configuration bits and the ID locations. To modify either the configuration bits or the ID locations, just click a mouse button on the displayed values, and a dialog box will pop up in which you can enter new hexadecimal values.

The fourth and last region is the Program Memory Window. This window displays the program memory contents in hexadecimal and ascii. You can move through the PIC program space with the scroll bar to the right of the display. The data displayed may have been loaded either from a hex file, or by reading the program contents of a device in the programmer.



System requirements
Gpicp requires Linux, Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL), and of course, picp and (optionally) gpdasm. If you don't already have SDL, you will need to obtain it from http://www.libsdl.org and compile or install the runtime libraries for your system.

Gpicp, picp, and gpdasm are licensed with the GNU General Public License. SDL is licensed with the GNU Library General Public License.

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The Main Menu

File Button

The main menu File button will bring up a file submenu:




   Open - Brings up a file selector from which you can navigate directories and
            select a hex file to read into the program buffer.

   Reload - Reloads the currently selected program or data file.

   Save - This button will write the program memory to a hex file. Any existing
            file with the same name will be overwritten.

   Save as - Same as the Save button, but you specify the filename (without
            the hex extension--it will be added automatically).

   Save configuration - Saves the currently selected Serial Port and PIC Device
            in the file 'gpicp.cfg'. This file will be read whenever gpicp is run, and
            will configure gpicp to use the specified port and PIC device. If you specify
            an argument to gpicp, gpicp will interpret it as a directory name from which
            to fetch the configuration file, otherwise the configuration file is read from
            the current directory. The configuration file also contains information on the
            current state of the 'byte addressing mode', the 'ascii word mode', and the
            program and data files in use at the time the save configuration button was
            clicked. These files will automatically be loaded into program and/or data
            memory.

   Exit - Quits GPICP. You can also quit by pressing ALT-X.

   Close menu - Closes the file submenu. The submenu can also be closed by
            clicking the main menu File button a second time.

File->Open file selector: click on a filename to select, then click the Ok button. The selected file will be loaded into program memory. Clicking on a directory entry will display all hex files in that directory. A file may also be loaded by double-clicking or right-clicking on an entry in the file list without having to click the Ok button.



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Serial Port Button

The Serial Port button will bring down a menu from which you may select /dev/ttys0 through /dev/ttys3 as the port to which the programmer is connected. Users must have read/write permission for the selected port. As root, use chmod to set read/write permission for the port. It is not recommend that you run gpicp as root.

Enable Programmer

This button will initiate communication with the programmer. If successful, the firmware version will appear on the first status line just below the main menu. You cannot perform any operation with the programmer until it is enabled.

Device Button

Device selection: Use the scroll bar to the right of the device list to move through the list. Then click on the device you wish to use (which will be highlighted when you click on it), then click the Ok button (or the Cancel button to cancel the selection). As with the file selector, a device may be selected by double-clicking or right-clicking on the device entry without having to click the Ok button.



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Read Button

The Read button brings down a submenu from which you select what you want to read:

Help Button

The Help button brings up a submenu with a list of help topics:



Click on one of the help topics to bring up a text box with a brief description of the item and information on its use. To close the text box, click anywhere within the text box, click on another help topic, or click the "Close help menu" button.


About Button

This button will pop up a window with some totally useless information :-). To remove the window, either click the About button a second time, or click anywhere within the About text window.

Logging debug info

The checkbox at the right end of the first menu is used to enable communications protocol debugging. If you are using picp-0.6.2 or higher, clicking this checkbox will enable/disable comm line debugging. When enabled, all communications to/from the programmer will be logged in a file named 'picpcomm.log'. If you discover a bug in picp that you believe is communications related, enable comm line debugging in gpicp, perform the failing operation, zip the picpcomm.log file, and email it to me at the address given in the source code. Comm line debugging can be enabled in the command-line picp by using the -c option as the first parameter to picp (eg: picp -c /dev/ttyS1 16f84 -rd).

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Write Button

The Write button brings down a submenu from which you select what part of the PIC device you want to program: Note that programming the program memory will not program configuration bits or ID locations, even if those were part of the program data loaded from a hex file. Loading a hex file containing data for ID or configuration will update the ID or configuration bits displays, but then config and ID must be programmed as a separate operation. This is to allow you to verify the program memory before setting configuration bits that might code protect the chip.

Erase

The Erase button brings down a submenu from which you select what part of the PIC device you want to erase: Note that selecting flash device may be the only way to recover if code protection has been enabled in the configuration bits for flash devices. Also see the Known Issues note on erasing.

Verify

The Verify button brings down a submenu from which you select what part of the PIC device you want to verify. The data read from the programmer will be compared to the data buffered in gpicp and a pop-up box will tell you if they match. Regions which may be verified are:

Blank Check

The Blank Check button will test to see if the PIC device in the programmer is blank and reports the results for program memory, configuration bits, ID locations, and data memory. Click the close button in the results display box.

Edit cfg bits

This button brings up an input box in which you may modify the configuration bits. Enter the new data in hexadecimal and click on Ok to accept the changes, or Cancel to discard any changes. You may also bring up the input box by clicking the mouse on the status display for the configuration bits.

Edit Id

This button brings up an input box in which you may modify the ID locations. Enter the new data in hexadecimal and click on Ok to accept the changes, or Cancel to discard any changes. You may also bring up the input box by clicking the mouse on the status display for the ID locations.

Disasm

This button will bring up a new window in which the output of gpdasm for the current program data will be displayed. The scroll bar at the right side of the window allows you to view any part of the disassembled program. Unlike the main gpicp window, the disassembly window can be resized.

Screenshot of disassembly window:



ISP button

The ISP button is used to toggle between picp and picp-isp as the programmer interface. Normally this checkbox should be off. When using a Warp-13 programmer, the interface is slightly different if In-Circuit Serial Programming is being used. Enable this checkbox only if you are programming a chip on a board connected to the Warp-13 via the 5-pin connector on the lower right side of the Warp-13. Do not enable ISP if you are using a Picstart Plus programmer.

Status display



Programmer: This status line displays the programmer firmware version number after communication with the programmer has been established by clicking on the Enable Programmer button in the main menu.

File: This line displays the current file name, if any file has been selected by File->Open or File->Save As.

Port: Displays the currently selected serial port (/dev/ttys0 - /dev/ttys3).

configuration bits: Displays the current configuration bits in hexadecimal.

ID: Displays the current ID locations in hexadecimal.

Program Memory Window

The Program Memory Window displays a 256-byte slice of the pic program code in hexadecimal and ASCII. A scroll bar to the right of the display allows you to move the window to any 256 byte segment of the code address space for the particular PIC device selected.

The data in the program memory window cannot be modified in gpicp except by opening a new file or reading program data from the programmer. If the program is modified externally (e.g. by editing the source file and re-assembling), you must re-open the file. (If you attempt to program a PIC device with data that has been modified externally, gpicp will note that the program has been modified and ask you if you want to reload the file before programming the device.)

Clicking on the left end of the title bar for the program memory window will toggle between display of program memory or data memory (for those PIC devices that have data memory).

Byte addressing: This checkbox toggles between word/byte addressing in the program memory display. Currently, only 18xxx devices are known to use byte addressing.

Word ascii: This checkbox toggles between displaying ascii text for only the lower byte, or for both bytes of each word in program memory.

Known Issues

The only reliable way to erase anything is with the erase flash button. The other erase buttons may or may not work with particular PIC devices. Please don't send me bug reports about the other options unless you know they should work with some particular device.

The editing windows for ID and configuration data still need work. They're usable, but not very efficient.

No sanity check is done on data entered for the ID locations and configuration bits. If you attempt to program invalid data, the verification check will fail.

Some data in picdev.c is known to be incorrect. Due to these incorrect entries, erasing the configuration bits may fail to verify. If this happens, enter known valid data in the config bits field and use the program config bits feature. Alternatively, you can use the erase device feature. If you have this problem with a particular PIC device, and you know the correct data for that device, please notify the author at the email address given in the source code.

Support for 18Fxxx devices has been tested only with 18f458 and 18f252 chips. Bug reports regarding 18f chips will be greatly appreciated. Please email a zip or gz file with the picpcomm.log file and any other relevant information.

Many functions have still not been implemented. Work is continuing on these issues. Future versions of gpicp will allow editing of program or data memory in the display window. Please send bug reports and feature wish lists to the author at the email address in the source code. Comments on this documentation are also appreciated.

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