PIC16F628A on Dataman 48LV

[Guest]

Subject says it all:

Is it possible to program PIC16F628A parts (the "A" suffix is significant !) on a Dataman 48LV ?

The latest device support list would seem to indicate not. Just the PIC16F628 (non-A) is listed.

Yet the Dataman 48XP can do it, and the D848 was updated recently (per an announcement elsewhere in these forums).

Is the Dataman 48LV going to be also updated ? If not, why not ?

It seems the differences between the "A" and non-"A" suffix PIC16F628s are very slight, yet obviously Microchip has changed something subtle in the programming specifications. One of the main motivations for using the "A" suffix parts is that they're cheaper to buy.

Or has my "LV" become an unsupported dinosaur that I'm going to be forced to ugprade ?

Cheers

Jason Armistead

[Dataman (Neil Parker)]

Dear Jason,

Due to the way that Windows XP dynamically accesses the parallel port, the engineers had to make a hardware upgrade to the Dataman 48LV in order for it to communicate with the new Windows XP operating system reliably. This new product is called the Dataman 48XP and this is the product that features all the latest supported devices. The Dataman 48LV is still supported with new software releases for bug fixes on existing devices in its software. The latest software 4.67 is available from our website.

We do offer a migration path for Dataman 48LV users by way of a hardware upgrade board that fits into your existing programmer which will convert it up to a Dataman 48XP. Details of this hardware upgrade board can be found on our website.

This board will ensure that your programmer will operate under Windows XP, 2000, 9x and NT and will improve its performance by up to 100%. The Dataman 48XP supports the chip that you mention, the PIC16F628A.

Best regards,

Neil

[Guest]

Neil

I am running Windows 2000 and not likely to migrate to XP for a long time - being in a corporate environment, our IT people are less than thrilled about being on the bleeding edge of Microsoft's product strategy. I personally don't care for XP's user interface either, so Win 2K is fine with me.

Even if Windows XP *DOES* introduce a different way of accessing the parallel port, what has that REALLY got to do with the implementation of the programming algorithms inside the Dataman 48 LV or XP ?

While Dataman may have had to come up with a new driver strategy to get data across from the PC to the programmer unit, surely the fundamental algorithms to then drive the pins of the device in the ZIF socket (inside the Dataman 48), are essentially unchanged as the timing and device programming algorithm are determined by the device manufacturer and not by Bill Gates and friends ?

For this reason I would thus imagine that the actual device databases between the LV and XP versions of the Dataman 48 are not that different, although maybe as an embedded systems programmer of 17 years experience, working on products with a 30+ year service life expectancy, I just don't understand ...

The idea of forking out $650 AUD to upgrade my programmer to program an "A" suffix version of a part that IS supported by the existing Dataman 48 LV is not one that my boss is too keen about.

Regards

Jason Armistead

[Guest]

When using the 16F627A in the 48xp programmer we get Device ID check problems. We are using an adaptor to serial program these devices on board.
We bought the 48XP just for this chip (A Part) to over come the problem that our 3 other 48LV won't handle. Please Please Please sort the drivers for the 16F62xA for the 48LV's as these have proved reliable for the last 7k chips. So far we have only managed to program about 40 chips out of the last 500 units. We are currently trying to buy replacement stock of the non A parts.
Regards

John Catchpole

[Dataman (Neil Parker)]

John,

New device support for the D48LV was ceased in September 2003 when it was replaced by the D48XP.

Please give full details of the A parts you have including date codes etc.
The success rate you are experiencing is clearly not acceptable.

Neil