November 2012
Intermediate to advanced
496 pages
12h 2m
English
Chapter 4
PIC Microcontroller Development Tools – Including Display Development Tools
The development of a microcontroller based system used to be a difficult task, but nowadays this task is simplified considerably with the availability of many development tools. In general, the development tools are hardware and software based, although much of the tools are nowadays integrated, enabling the user to easily create a program, test it, and load it to the target hardware with the click of a button.
The tools for creating a microcontroller based project include visual text editors, assemblers, compilers, simulators, in-circuit debuggers, emulators, device programmers and development kits.
A typical project development cycle starts with designing the hardware. Then the program is written using a text editor. The Windows operating system is distributed with a text editor called the Notepad. Note that you cannot use the Word program as a text editor, as the written text is embedded with special control characters. The assemblers or compilers do actually contain built-in text editors that can be used for program development. The developed program is then converted into a form that can be understood by the microcontroller using an assembler or a compiler. Some large programs consist of several modules and such modules are combined using a linker program. The final program is then usually simulated in software. Simulation is an invaluable tool, as it helps the programmer to detect any errors ...
