For anybody out there looking for a free open source BASIC compiler for PICs, then I highly recommend the Great Cow Basic Compiler. To make things even better, this compiler has been improved about 5000% in the last two years. A small group of individuals have contributed to making it better and I was one of the contributors to the team. There is now a new "Hot Release" available. It's called this because it's not a completely stable released but about as close as you can get without tons more testing.

I've talked about this compiler before and even created a website dedicated to it. When I created my GreatCowBasic.com website, there wasn't much documentation on the compiler. There wasn't an install facility. Setting a programmer up took a lot of steps. There were several different IDEs for it but none of them endorsed by the team.
Many bugs existed and the documentation was poor. Plus there were many requests for new commands. 

So I attempted to make it easier to use with the CHIPINO module as the hardware. Now the compiler has really grown from where it was. It now supports both PIC and AVR micros. I prefer PIC but now people using a CHIPINO can share code with an Arduino user. The SYNWRITE IDE has been improved and become the standard. The help files have been greatly improved. Tons of sample code are now included. Lots of new features and commands are part of Great Cow Basic.

Despite all these improvements, the simplicity of the compiler has been maintained. You can get access to any of the libraries and modify them if you really want/need to. What I like best is it still produces pure assembly code and I can load that into MPLAB or MPLAB X and debug with professional tools.

It really is a great compiler now and the price of FREE cannot be beat. So if you are just getting started with PICs, I highly recommend you look into this compiler. And if you like what you see, get involved, post to the forum, help find any missed bugs. It's truly a community project but far from a limited effort. It could easily sell for $100 or more based on what it can do but it remains free and completely open source for hobbyist or commercial use. 

In my book Programming the BASIC Atom Microcontroller and also in my book Getting Started with PIC's - Volume 2, I wrote about creating large characters on a 4x20 LCD. It was also printed in the 2007 September issue of Nuts & Volts Magazine for my column Getting Started with PICs that ran from 2006 thru 2009. I used the trick of creating custom characters on the first 8 locations of the Character RAM in the LCD HD44780 driver chip to build the large digits. The topic of creating custom characters came up recently on the Great Cow Basic forum so I thought I would repost the article here on my website under the download page.

It was written to run on the Basic Atom microcontroller but the concepts and description in the article explain how to create the effect, so it should be easy to adapt it to any microcontroller. I know I've done it with PICBASIC but I could not find any sample code in the ever expanding list of code samples on my computer.

Hopefully this repost of the article will be helpful to somebody out there in my audience. I may repost all the Getting Started with PIC's articles over time as a bonus to my readers. They are a bit dated, but not out of date. So they may be helpful. If you are interested in that, please comment below.

I recently donated some of my shield files to the CHIPINO.com website. They are just files from my kickstarter projects that I was sharing anyway but this way the CHIPINO team or anybody looking for CHIPINO support shields can get them at one location. I helped create the CHIPINO with a group of friends because I wanted to see a Microchip PIC based option to easily use the various Arduino shields. From there CHIPINO has grown on its own.

The desire to make CHIPINO completely open source and not just the current non-commercial version is still something I'm pushing for. It worked out great for Arduino though maybe not the Arduino creators. The Arduino kind of took on a life of it's own and the originators kind of lost control. That is the scary part for some of the CHIPINO team. 

Because CHIPINO was designed to work with a Programmer, and not a bootloader, it allows CHIPINO to use any 28 pin PIC16F or 18F device that operates at 5v. That offers a lot of options. This also made the CHIPINO automatically grow with all the advancements in the Microchip PIC world. Programming a CHIPINO from a PICkit 2 or PICkit 3 with MPLAB or MPLAB X or any third party IDE and any compiler that produces a .hex file for PICs is possible with the current setup and thus makes it universal for developers of all types. From hobbyist to professional.

It's one of the advantages I see to the CHIPINO has over Arduino which locks you into a crude IDE and only a couple chip options. But its clear that Arduino has taken over the electronics world so I'm clearly in the minority. But that is why I'd like to see the complete open source so others can take CHIPINO further. Time will tell. I'm also looking at changing my shield designs to completely open source as well (remove the non-commercial portion) as soon as the agreement I have with Howtronics.com expires. 


I have other designs to clear out of my lab which I'll be releasing open source over time. Each will probably be a project on my YouTube Channel. I have just so many designs I've worked on over the years and its time I just let them go for others to fully enjoy and possibly take them further than I ever could.

I've been doing a lot of 3D printing lately but in the background I'm working on new books. One of them is an update to my Beginner's Guide to Embedded C Programming series. In the first series, I used MPLAB, HI-TECH C Compiler, PICkit 2 programmer and a PIC16F690. All those have been replaced. MPLAB X, XC8 Compiler, PICkit 3 programmer and the PIC16F1xxx family of enhanced mid-range devices. Something else changed recently which has me delaying my book, MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC).

MCC was in beta for a while but is now released and already on version 2.1, and it is awesome. With a few clicks of the mouse you can build a whole project of code (see it in the video below). Each peripheral is reduced to a set of check boxes or drop down menus. I/O can be configured with a GUI version of the chip. Even the main.c file can be generated. And the best part.....

.....all the code generated includes a library of functions for each peripheral written in XC8 code. Even I/O has its own set of functions such as:

RB0_SetHigh() 
RB0_SetLow()   
RB0_Toggle()  
RB0_GetValue()
RB0_SetDigitalInput()  
RB0_SetDigitalOutput()   
RB0_SetPullup()    
RB0_ResetPullup()   
RB0_SetAnalogMode()   
RB0_SetDigitalMode()

And these are just the I/O functions for the RB0 pin. And the function code is open source so you can see how its done. Great for learning.

It does the same for SPI, I2C, Timers, etc. You could take a module like the CHIPINO with fixed pinouts, install a PIC16F1936 (instead of PIC16F886), setup all the peripherals and connections to the I/O and then build the code. You'll have a main.c file with configurations set and ready for your custom code along with a library of functions for all the peripherals in the device. 

You basically just created your own Arduino style module from a CHIPINO. And you have debug capability through the PICkit 3, full access to the configuration to run slower speeds or faster speeds. And when you are done, unplug the PIC16F1936 and do it again for some other blank 28 pin PIC with different features. And because you don't need a custom bootloader device, you can use any PIC supported by MCC. And that list is growing with each release.

So stay tuned for more as I work this into my new series of books. Writing C code for PICs just got so easy. I cannot say that enough.

I'm planning on launching a Video Blog soon and in the process have tried various different tools for creating special effects. One I found was the Animate It app for iPad. Its from the people that gave us the Wallace & Gromit stop action videos. It is a lot of fun to play with though I don't know how useful it is for a video blog since I can just speed up a video if I want to get through a section quickly.

So I figured I'd share this little test video with my audience and let you be memorized by the building of a CHIPINO module kit. I needed one for a project so two birds with one stone.

I have another PK2 programmer update for you. My PK2 design just got a little better. I wanted to try out the new PIC16F1788 in a CHIPINO module because I noticed that Great Cow Basic Compiler supported it. But I quickly realized that the latest device file for PICkit 2 didn't support it. So it gave me reason to try out the Device File Manager by user name Dougy83.

The device file manager is a great tool for updating the Device file for PICkit 2 (and my PK2). I used a PIC16F1784 which was supported and made a copy within the tool. Then I downloaded the PIC16F1788 programming spec to get all  

One of the features I like most about the Great Cow Basic (GCB) compiler is it produces a pure assembly file. I've mentioned this before in a previous post, but what I didn't know it did until recently, was that it can transfer the BASIC command to the assembly file as a comment.

The picture below shows a screen capture from the MPLAB screen that has a GCB generated file. The Basic command lines show up as comments in green. The assembly code shows up below it.

It turns out this is just a command line option for the compiler. This feature has been automatically set in the design environment included with the Great Cow Basic download at my Great Cow Basic CHIPINO website. What this

Just launched my latest Kickstarter project. Its for the next generation Demo-Shield. When we took over Howtronics.com we ended up with the design files for many of the CHIPINO shields. The Demo-Shield needed an update so I went to work. But would there be interest in it was the unknown.

So that is where Kickstarter is great. People vote with their wallet and get a early bird deal in the process. I designed the new version to eliminate the jumpers for disconnecting components. I've used the original Demo-Shield for years and never once had to remove one so I designed those out. I also brought it up to date with UNO style headers with the extra pins.

Check it out and determine if you'd like to see this product become more than a prototype. I use the original one often for teaching beginners programming so I hope it's a successful campaign.

I've wanted to get a graphic LCD working for a long time but never could find the time to read through all the data sheet info and then develop the code. It was a great surprise when I found that the Great Cow Basic compiler had built in support. Problem is the documentation was missing. So I sorted through the header file and was able to get a KS0108 128x64 LCD to work directly with a CHIPINO mini module.

The commands are structured so that ASCII characters don't start displaying until 15 decimal. So I created a looping program that displayed the decimal number for the ASCII character and then drew a box that contained the ASCII character so I could verify the capability.

The Great Cow Basic compiler has commands to draw ASCII phrases and individual characters. It can also draw lines both horizontal and vertical and also an open or filled box.

More detail can be found at the greatcowbasic.com sample programs page.

I bought one of these matrix shield kits on ebay. I had to search a little for the assembly instructions and schematic which were not included but after getting all that sorted out I was able to make a sample program to display ASCII characters using a CHIPINO module and Great Cow Basic.

The project can be downloaded from the GreatCowBasic.com website under the Sample Projects section. It's a start and I hope to create more in the future. 

Getting the correct orientation and pixel settings was a bit difficult but to help create the characters I used one of the many character creator applications on the web.
Here are a few of the best ones I found:
Pattern Library
LCD Creator
Character Calculator