R8C - an initial report

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Elektor’s R8C/13 project: an initial report

Shortly after the publication of the February 2006 issue of Elektor Electronics (English edition), announcing an R8C Starter Kit a.k.a. ‘16-bit Tom Thumb’ for just £8.30 (plus P&P) hundreds of readers of the magazine started to actually use the system. In most cases, everything went smoothly. Then, questions started to come in how to solve such and such a task using the kit. Most of these queries have been compiled into ‘neat text’ and may be found in the 16-bit Tom Thumb topic created in our Forum. We’re grateful for all contributions to this Forum topic, keep ‘m coming!

Some readers ran into problems with the communication between the R8C/13 board and their PC. In some cases it appeared as if it the system allowed a program to be loaded once only and doing so for a second one was not possible. The cause was quickly found: in the program FTD, the options ‘AutoDisconnect’ and ‘Erase Device before Programming’ have to be activated.

Two dozen or so users suddenly found the software querying them for an ID number of the chip. This is indicative of communication problems, as the ID burned into the chip is then not properly read. The result is FTD refusing to program the chip. FTD is optimised for Windows XP and a standard RS232 interface, and everything will function just fine with these two available. Errors are likely to occur with older operating systems, with some laptop PCs and some USB-RS232 adapters. If a faulty ID is read, do test again with another PC or different programming software like for example Flashstart. Before each new attempt, leave the controller without a supply voltage for a while. In many cases, restarting the PC seems to have solved the problems, too.

Having overcome these teething problems with the help of a number of experts (and patient readers) I can safely say that all R8C users are now in a position to use their system to its full extent, if necessary helped by Elektor’s superb R8C Prototyping Board described in the March 2006 issue. The computing power lurking in the little R8C/13 module and the ingenious applications we receive from you never stop to amaze me.

Burkhard Kainka