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The Little "rAVeR!" Programmer.
 

17-Mar-2005 Terry Jones Don, I thought you might like to know that I have discovered a marginal design issue on the DT006. I bought and assembled one recently (It's a real handy little board to by the way !) I have installed an ATMega8 on the board and was having some trouble getting my software to respond correctly to operation of SW3, which I am using to simlate input hardware that doesn't exist yet. I spent some time today trying to figure out what was going on. It seems that (on my board at least) operation of SW3 only drags the input pin down to about 1.57V. Looking at the data sheets for the ATMega8 data sheet it needs an input voltage less that 0.2 Vcc to guarantee a logic 0. The data sheet for the AT90S2313 supplied with the kit specifies a voltage less that 0.3Vcc, so it would probably work in most cases with that ship, but is still marginal. I solved the problem by replacing R1 and R14 with 100 ohm resistors. Possibly a higher value (say 220 or 330 ohms) would also do the trick. Regards

From Bob Parker 15-Aug-2003 Motorola's got a decent 200+ page book about microcontroller fundamentals. You can download it for free from http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/M68HC05TB.pdf but be warned that it's almost 3MB in size.

15-Apr-2003 This would useful tip to add to your HELP the comments for this chip.  Using the AT90S2343 with BASCOM 1.11.7.3 the DT006 hardware there are no problems with programming the chip ie no special jumper conditions to enable programming. If access to PB3 and PB4 is desired then jumpers J11 & J12 must be installed with pins 2 and 3 linked in both cases. Note that PB3 and PB4 are each connected to a momentary pushbutton on the DT006 board. These can be used to check contact closure functions, so bear this in mind when writing code for contact monitoring.  The current ATMEL data sheet specifies that all versions –1, -4 and –10 are supplied with a fuse bit set for the internal clock that operates at approximately 1Mhz. If using the internal clock make sure to enter 1000000 under Options\Complier\Communication\frequency.  A great little chip with minimal external components. Only the resistor and capacitor required for RESET during power up. Best wishes David Chambers  E-Mail: davmax at optusnet.com.au

 
 

Mega8's seem to work in the DT006 Thu, 29 Aug 2002"Alex Shepherd" @wave.co.nz> Hi Don, I got my mega8's and they seem to work ok in the DT006. I just plugged it in and tweaked a BASCOM-AVR sample to print on the LCD and UART and it seems to work. I just used the default 1MHz onboard clock - until I can work out the fuse settings to change it!!! It was a bit of a pain working out the port pin mappings to SIMMStick D0..D14 lines - shame the mapping is not as tidy as the 2313 or 8535, but it does go! Cheers Alex

8-Oct-2002
Thanks to Alex Shepard for this rAVeR program to allow the PonyProg to work with the dt006 board:
This utility is designed to be used with the PonyProg AVR ISP Programmer with a Dontronics DT006 board. Currently there is a problem with using PongProg2000 2.05a in that the RESET line of the DT006 is not released after programming the AVR. This is a pain, so I modified the Driver LINX demo to relese the DT006 RESET line. http://www.dontronics.com/zip/resetdt006.zip
Alex is using PongProg2000 version 2.05a which you can download from here:
http://www.lancos.com/ppwin95.html

I just wanted to drop a line to let you know that the board only took me a couple of hours to complete and works perfectly. I had to buy a new soldering iron with a much finer tip than the one I had (now a 0.8mm) and although some people had said they had difficulty following the instructions on your website, I had no problems at all, and it's been 10 years since I've built a kit!

I couldn't find a 25 wire cable, other than printer extension cables, which were all around the $30 mark. I ended up buying 2 x 25 pin connectors with IDC connectors on the back and a 1m length of 25 wire ribbon cable (assembled using multi-grips of course), grand total around $11. 

I first read about the Basic Stamps in the DSE catalogue around a year ago, and after looking at them on the net wanted to give them a try, but I baulked at the high cost and the fact that if you 'fritz' a pin, you need to send off for a new PIC and then replace an SMD component. No thank you. I am able to translate most of the code examples into BASCOM, and BASCOM appears to be more powerful in a lot of aspects. The DT006 and the whole SimmStick range of products are well designed. I'll be buying more.

Cheers Paul Howard

Hi Don,

I am attaching a program that you can distribute to help people (newbies especially) test their boards. The program will test the Max232, the UART lines on the 2313, the I/O, the LEDS, and the buttons. It's well commented so you don't need a readme.

This email serves as a full and unconditional release and as authorization for Dontronics to distribute the attached program: testdt006.bas as they deem fit.
Jerry Prado
http://www.dontronics.com/zip/testdt006.zip

Hey,
        Everything is working...wonderfull.  If you hadn't instructed me
to check the parallel port protocol (mine was set to bidirectional) I
think I would not have figured this out.  I reset the parallel port to
EPP in my computer's bios and now everything is fine; I compiled and
downloaded the dt104.bas example and the led's circulate around.

        THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND EFFORT.

-Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Alberts [mailto:mark@mcselec.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 4:50 PM
To: Bennett, Robert T.
Subject: RE: problems with dt006
 

Dear Robert,

Ok the DT006 was built. Did the leds flash when you connected it to the
power supply?
This way we know it works ok.

Then lets say you use the 2313(doesnt matter which one you use however)
-You have connected power supply to the dt006
-There is a parallel printer cable connected to the DB25 connector
-You have selected the Sample Electronics programmer
-you have selected the right LPT address.(378 for LPT1)
Check if your BIOS is set to ECP or EPP. This must be done at startup of
your PC in the BIOS options.

Now set the Sample programmer to manual(by not selecting Auto program) in
the Programmer options. The press F4. You receive the message that te chip
could not be recognized.
Do the leds blink when you press the verify button? This indicates that the
lpt cable is connected and that it is working.
Also ensure that with an EMPTY chip, the leds do not blink while you do not
try to program. When the leds do light up it means that another process is
writing to the LPT port. This can be a printer driver that 'talks' to the
printer. Disable it in this case (or just the bidirectional communication)

Best regards,
mark alberts

I included a sample for the great new dt006!
When you press a button the leds will flash.
Your compiler does not support the statements I used yet so you can only
upload the hex file. Don't try to compile it!
When you unzip and run the programmer it should work.
Mark

dt006_1.zip

Jorge Ferrero via the SimmStick User Group.

Here is a new MIK designed test prog for the dt006.  If you like it I will tidy up the source a bit for you to distribute.
I know you are busy counting your money but if you can get a chance to try it I think you will like it.
Upon power up it goes through the `standard' led count at 1 sec intervals but with the difference that once the leds are all alight it then clears them one at a time, this will run continuously if you let it.

Press button 1 and a LED `race' (the RAVERs) will start and cycle 25 times (10 sec) and then return to the main cycle again. Press button 2 and another bunch of RAVERs will `race'  Press BOTH buttons and still more RAVERs.
raver.zip

You can set the Micro and Crystal/Resonator speed for raver.bas (inside raver.zip) with the following lines:

$crystal = 10000000                   ' 10 MHz XTAL
'or
$crystal = 4000000                     ' 4 MHz XTAL

I want to remark that in some cases, you don't need to remove the J9 links; for instance I wrote the Mick Gulovsen program (works nice!!) without removing the links and it works O.K.
I send attached to you a very simple way of verifying the serial communication between the PC and the DT006 (instructions inside the file enjoyAVR.bas), but in this case, you must put all the J9 links out, otherwise you have only garbage on the terminal emulator screen.
Regards
Jorge Ferrero
enjoyAVR.zip

I have been having spurious success with the simple cable programmer from
Sample Electronics for the AVR series.

After resorting to hooking up the CRO I have figured it out (I think). When trying to identify the chip, no response on the MISO pin indicates that the Programming Enable command has not been correctly received by the target.
The SCK line Mark/Space times were okay but it looked a bit sad with a slow rise time but a rapid fall time. So I initially tried to improve the rise time with a pullup. No change ie still could not identify chip. I was about to add some buffers when I came across an Atmel app note for their serial programmer

"During this first phase of the programming cycle, keeping the SCK line free from pulses is critical, as pulses will cause the target AVR to loose syncronisation with the programmer. When syncronisation is lost, the only means of regaining syncronisation is to release the RESET line for more than 100ms."

I have added a 100pF cap from SCK to GND and works first time every time now.  The SCK rise time is still sad but there must have been enough noise to corrupt the initial command despite using a 600mm shielded cable.

This may be useful to your users.
Regards,
Mark Hayne

In issue 73 of ReNew (an Australlian magazine) they published an article on datalogging using a dedicated microcomputer board. Below are the links and files associated with the DT006 and Bascom-AVR
http://ata.org.au/http://ata.org.au/71datalogger.htm

22-Dec-2000 A new update of BASCOM-AVR. Both the commercial edition and the DEMO 2KB edition. There are some neat new features like a 1wire scanning routine, buffered serial input and output, full M163 programming support.

DT006 AVR programming software available

1/20/2001

I am developing a simple ISP programmer to use with the www.dontronics.com DT-006 (aka Raver, a simmstick compatible development board) AVR board. The free gcc compiler is available for the Atmel AVR, but the available programmers that I found don't support the DT-006 board, as it has slightly different parallel port connections.

The goal is to make a very simple to use and efficient programming environment for the DT-006 with gcc-avr.

The design of this software allows programming the board from the makefile upon successful compilation, with a command-line interface suitable for make or batch files. I can now compile and load the chip in about 6 seconds with two keystrokes.

The program is currently in beta release and I am looking for interested beta testers. The successful testing so far on my own DT-006 board includes only the AT90S2313 cpu, but according to specifications should work with other parts up to at least 8K as well, including the AT90S8515 and AT90S8535. Currently byte mode programming is supported.

The design of the software is such that it could be made pin-reconfigurable to handle other pinout connections, such as the Kanda type programmer, but that is not currently implemented.

The plan is to get some beta testing feedback, debug and incorporate some improvements, and release as a free software product, possibly under the GNU license.

The current version of the software is windows 9x based, this may change in the future to incorporate more platforms. The current beta should run on DOS as well as windows 95, 98, and windows ME. It will not run on windows NT or 2000 at this time due to i/o restrictions.

=====================

4-Feb-2001
Don:

The beta has been quite stable, so if you wish to put on your web I'll enclose it here. I'm still calling it beta because testing has been limited to DT006 and 2313 so far. I've programmed my test setup a hundred times or more during development, and it has been rock-solid for some time.

It is an 80K zip file, complete with binary executable, docs, and source.
It is reconfigurable for most any wiring setup and defaults to the DT006.
We have a flag for Kanda/STK200 but haven't tested it yet -- I don't have that setup.

If you wish, I will send updates to you as I release them.
Thanks, Alan

Tom Davies wrote:
> I've successfully modified uisp (http://medo.fov.uni-mb.si/mapp/uTools/) to
> use the Sample Electronics style parallel cable as used with the DT006.

Don,
Uros is happy to have the source to the DT006 version of uisp on your site. He'd like his name (Uros Platise) and a link to the Micro Tools for Linux page, which is http://medo.fov.uni-mb.si/mapp/uTools
The source is attached. I expect Uros will ask you to update it occasionally -- indeed once he's integrated the DT006 stuff you could just have the link...

Uros wrote the original uisp, I downloaded the source code from his web site and added DT006 support. I've given the changed code to Uros, and he will add it to the 'official' uisp in due course, at which point the code I've sent you becomes obsolete. In fact at that point you could take the file off and just have the link to Uros's site. However at the moment Uros doesn't have a version on his site which supports the DT006.
Download: uisp-0_2b-1026-td1_src.tar.gz

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