This quick review of the 8-bit boards available from Microchip.
This includes Curiosity, Xpress, PICDEM and others. This is not intended to be comprehensive or a complete review of every board product - we collated this information for a discussion with Microchip and we thought this may be useful to see the information all in once place.
Bill Roth, Chris Roper and Evan Venn authored and edited this information.
|
Item |
Part # |
Name |
Rational |
Characteristics |
Usage |
Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Curiosity LPC Development Board |
These two boards (#1 and #2) will support development and testing of MikroBUS drivers on many of the current generation 8, 14, 20, 28 and 40 Pin PIC devices.
These are suitable for beginners as a known working environment to learn on and are also suited to be used to develop revised Tutorial Guides and Videos as they have an integrated Programmer. A DIP board with interchangeable devices, rather than a board with a dedicated processor, as a major part of the appeal of Great Cow BASIC is portability amongst devices in the 8 Bit family. |
LVP, PKOB, Mikrobus, Very limited populated board, Can add PK3 programming port |
Users & Developers |
$20 |
|
|
2 |
Curiosity HPC Development Board |
LVP, PKOB, Mikrobus, Very limited populated board, Can add PK3 programming port |
Users & Developers |
$32 |
||
|
3 |
Explorer 8 Development Kit |
Whilst the Curiosity boards are suitable for development, testing and training, there is a large body of PIC devices in the 18 PIN packages as well as other older devices in use by the Great Cow BASIC community.
This board will support testing the libraries and drivers on these older devices with HVP as well as the newer LVP devices. |
Supports all 8-bit Chips, MikroBus, Ext. programmer required |
Developer |
$75 |
|
|
4 |
MPLAB Xpress PIC16F18855 Evaluation Board |
Great Cow BASIC demonstrations suite produced in 2016. |
MikroBus, LVP, Integrated Programmer, Bed of nail port * 2 |
Users & Developers |
$12 |
|
|
5 |
MPLAB Xpress PIC16F18345 Evaluation Board |
No Great Cow BASIC demonstrations |
MikroBus, LVP, Integrated Programmer, Bed of nail port * 2 |
Users & Developers |
$12 |
|
|
6 |
MPLAB Xpress PIC16F18877 Evaluation Board |
No Great Cow BASIC demonstrations |
MikroBus, LVP, Integrated Programmer, Bed of nail port * 2 |
Users & Developers |
$12 |
|
|
7 |
PICDEM Lab II Development Platform. |
This board supports MikroBUS drivers, that have been developed on the Curiosity Boards, with older Devices like the 18 PIN or older 14/20 pin PIC devices. It would be assumed that the developer has a suitable PICKit available to use in that case.
However, as the PICDEM Lab has no onboard programmer, it is not really suited for developing beginner tutorials. |
IO Pins no, MikroBus, Ext Programmer Required |
Developers |
$100 |
|
|
8 |
PICkit Serial SPI demo board |
This board will allow testing of SPI drivers against a known good reference source when developing for and debugging, unknown SPI based Click Boards and user programmes. |
SPI Interface only |
Developers |
$35 |
|
|
9 |
PICkit Serial I2C demo board |
This board will allow testing of I2C drivers against a known good reference source when developing for and debugging, unknown I2C based Click Boards and user programmes. |
I2C Interface only |
Developers |
$2 |