How do I send a file to a microcontroller for programming using a computer?

[seang]

I'm thinking about buying a few DIP microcontrollers just for fooling around's sake. I think I'll be able to figure most things out except this: how do I send the necessary file (for example, .s19 for freescale mcs) to the microcontroller.

In school we have development boards which sort of magically have USB cables which do that part for us. Is there a pin for this on the chip? Will I have to build a USB interface or something?

 

[antoker]

Usually JTAG interface is used to program the uC, without those fancy dev.kit. No, if you only want to program the uC, JTAG-mode will suffice, but as soon as you start debugging (e.g single step execution) then, you'll need a real dev.kit.

 

[seang]

alright, I read up on it a bit. I get what it is but I still have no idea how to implement it. Say I have the uC and a computer, what do I do?

I'll be using a freescale uC, and wikipedia tells me that their implementation is called COP. I'll be reading about that next if I can find anything

thanks

 

[antoker]

alright, I read up on it a bit. I get what it is but I still have no idea how to implement it. Say I have the uC and a computer, what do I do?

I'll be using a freescale uC, and wikipedia tells me that their implementation is called COP. I'll be reading about that next if I can find anything

thanks

I'm no expert on JTAG programming, since I'm using a dev.kit from microchip, but you should check electrical characteristics of a JTAG port and check if you can directly couple it to a COM port on your computer and use some DIY software to directly program the device. Take a http://www.freescale.com/webapp/search/MainSERP.jsp?" for "jtag programming", it came up with 10+ results.

For first time users I still would recommend a dev.kit, since it is perfect for debugging. I invested some money into microchip dspic33 dev kit with debugging option and I can't complain, since i learned a lot from running single step execution on a programs that a write, hence learning a lot about how the uC works.