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The OOPic-C board is a new board layout with a 24-pin chip style. This small sized oopic is aimed at the popular 24-pin sockets used by several microcontrollers expanding the OOPic's audience to individuals who already have hardware based on this 24-Pin system. The OOPic-C board includes an RS232 serial port for the new serial control protocol (explained below), 16 I/O pin configured within the 24-pin. Additional I/O lines are avaiable at one end of the board, each has a solderable test point labeled with the I/O function. The OOPic-C board comes equipped with one socketed EEPROM, three indicator LED's, and the OOPic2+ firmware. The OOPic2+ firmware is the next in line firmware release for the OOPic line of microcontrollers. Built on the capabilities of the PIC16F877, this firmware release's main feature is a serial control protocol that allows a remote PC, Pocket PC, Palm Pilot, or any other device with a serial port to interact with, control and debug an OOPic application while it is running. Other features of this release include several new hardware objects that are focused on motor control and a few objects that use the additional features of the PIC16F877 such as the 10-Bit A2D. Serial Control ProtocolThis exciting new feature introduced in OOPic firmware version OOPic2+ is a system by which the OOPic can be controlled via the serial port. SCP allows any serially connected device to interact with an OOPic with simple serial commands. SCP also provides debugging features that allow the OOPic's application program to be stopped, single stepped, resumed, or branched to, and even allows program modifications as well as entirely new programs to be downloaded to the OOPic. SCP accomplishes these features by allowing access to the OOPic's RAM, EEPROM and I2C port through the serial port with a simple serial protocol. The structure of the protocol is configured in such a way that the data loss that may be experienced during use of a radio linked serial port can be detected and corrected using only the Transmit and Receive lines of the serial port without the need for additional flow control I/O lines. The entire character set used by SCP is composed of human readable characters so that a serial terminal program can be used to manually control, program and debug the OOPic. The default baud rate of 9600 BPS may be changed to a baud rate as high as 38400 BPS and as low as 1200 BPS. More information can be found in the document www.oopic.com/pgchap16.htm Property Dialog BoxesThe new OOPic compiler version 5 contains Property Dialog Boxes for each Object. These property dialog boxes are used for interactively working with the properties of any Object while the application is running. By hitting the dialog boxes refresh button, all the properties of the Object are loaded in via SCP and updated in the dialog box. If a value is changed in the dialog box, the value is sent via SCP to the Object in the OOPic and the change occurs in real time. Several property dialog boxes can be open at the same time, and if more than one property dialog box is open when values are written, then all of the property dialog boxes are updated with new values. OOPic2+ Memory Map.The memory of the OOPic2+ is arranged so that the application program has 96 bytes of Object space (Note that the OOPic Object used 10 bytes of this), 72 bytes of variable space and 256 bytes of Fast-Access EEPROM. The EEPROM space is accessible by a new variable type, sByte. This new variable type will retain its value when the power is shut off.
Main I/OThe Main I/O of the OOPic-C board is split up into two groups of 8 I/O connections which can be found on the two sides of the 24-Pin package. Additional I/O
NetworkThe Network I/O of the OOPic-C board is the same as the I2C connector on the OOPic II. The 5 holes found on the end of the OOPic-C board will accepts a 5-pin header for this function. Status LED's
Pgm PortIn addition to being able to program the OOPic via the serial port, the Local I2C port has five holes that can be used for installing a programming connector that uses the original parallel OOPic programming cable. This port is also used for the coprocessors that use the Local I2C Port. |
The Additional I/O lines consists of 12 I/O Lines found on the end
of the board. These I/O lines include functions for 4 A2D
converters, Serial Receive and Transmit, 2 PWM outputs, 1 high-speed timer
input, 1 general purpose digital I/O line and two I2C control lines for
the I2C network.
Three status LED's are
found just to the side of the EEPROM, these LEDs, one red, one yellow and
one green, are under user program control.