REQUIREMENTS

My recommendation is, you should first read this book as a relaxed lecture. There are no additional requirements to understand it, excepting a little bit of logic--naturally. If you are an advanced hardware, firmware, and software designer, you do not necessarily need to experiment: just use this book as reference in your future design work. However, if it is your intention to learn from ground up and to experiment with all schematics and programs presented here, then you do need to prepare first. Please be aware that hardware, firmware, and software design work could be a bit expensive to deal with, and you should expect to invest something into acquiring the knowledge.

NOTES
LHFSD is not just another technical book: it presents in details a set of working hardware, firmware, and software projects. In order to do that, LHFSD makes references to complex Data Sheets, to professional compilers, and to specific hardware, firmware and software tools. Working with LHFSD is not easy: it requires determination, efforts and, most important, logic. Intelligent people are anywhere in society. Many doctors, teachers, artists, trades people and unqualified technicians have discovered they are in fact genii in programming. LHFSD can help you find your way.

This book deals with Microchip controllers, because they are still the cheapest and simplest technology available to start professional hardware and firmware design. For software design, Visual Basic 6 compiler is also one of the cheapest and most efficient software tools available. Of course, we are limited to the Windows® environment, but that is over 90% of all existing PCs! Any commercial program is written for Windows OS first, and before anything else. On the other hand, particular OS limitations refer only to the tools and technologies we use, because designing skills you will learn here work on all Operating Systems, and on other microcontroller brands as well. Now, after a first, relaxed lecture, it should be perfectly clear to you what to do next. If you decide to build yourself LHFSD-HCK, to test and learn the "how-to", then you need to procure few electronic components, and then the software compilers. Let's see what it takes to bring into factual reality all designs in this book.

For Hardware Design, you need, first of all, a "Schematic and PCB Editor", and there are many interesting options for that. If you already have one, then use the one you are most familiar with; if you do not have any, then you should go on the Internet and start with a search for "free PCB software". Have no fears, my friend, you will find your tool. The good thing is, PCB-CAD software design tools are greatly needed these days, and there are many companies striving to offer their products. Note this please: while some Schematic and PCB Editor software tools are priced in the range of 500 to 10000 USD, others are totally free! Well, not quite totally free, as you will discover--good things are never free--but they are a very cheap alternative. I dare say, in the near future the price of the PCB-CAD tools is going to drop dramatically. Even more, if any of the readers would feel "the call" for Visual Basic software development, I do encourage them to try developing a Schematic and PCB-CAD Editor--again, that is not very difficult.

Now, one way or the other you will get your software tools for hardware design, but the tragedy comes when building LHFSD-HCK. Although your board will work just fine, it is going to be rather expensive for a learning aid. We will calculate its approximate costs when we study BOM (Bill of Materials). Fact is, LHFSD-HCK is mandatory to implement all firmware and software programs in this book. Sure, as mentioned, if you do have some experience or a very sharp logic, you do not necessarily need to experiment with the firmware and software programs presented--in that case you will understand them logically, just by studying the accompanying source-code files. However, little hands-on experience is crucial when working with microcontrollers, so ... You see, microcontroller technology is somehow "custom", specific to each microcontroller brand, and even to each microcontroller family. Each hardware/firmware development environment has particularities, and there are specific "tricks" you need to know, in order to do the job properly. If you learn to control a particular family of microcontrollers, and if that particular family is a powerful one--as is Microchip's Digital Signal Controllers--then you have an enormous range of benefic applications ahead of you.

In order to help you reduce development costs, I will try contracting LHFSD-HCK with a local manufacturer; that should cut its price in half, or less, not to mention time saving. Please visit http://www.corollarytheorems.com/ where I will build few pages dedicated to LHFSD book. You should find there software updates for all source code in this book, and information regarding the future, possible, LHFSD-HCK kit. Now, even if you are going to buy your LHFSD-HCK from Corollary Theorems, you still need to study Hardware Design part very well, because hardware and firmware are strongly interdependent.

Firmware Design requires that you buy MPLAB ICD2 from Microchip. ICD2 is a very good investment, because you will have a Debugger and a Programmer in a single tool, for a wide range of Flash microcontrollers. Please buy the complete kit, with RS232 and USB cables, and with the AC/DC power adaptor included, because we need them all.

Microchip offers their MPLAB IDE (Integrated Development Editor) for free download, and that is quite a treat. Please be aware that MPLAB IDE is a complex editor, and you have to study it thoroughly before experimenting with the source code in this book. My advice is, before doing anything, just go to Microchip website and download MPLAB IDE--it is free, and you can download it as many times you want. The next step is, study MPLAB "Help" and its accompanying documentation for few days.

NOTES
It happened we had few clients asking for Customer Support related to using MPLAB IDE. We are sorry, but we cannot help you with that. First, MPLAB IDE has very good Help documentation and, secondly, it is Microchip's product.

In order to work with the firmware source-code files accompanying this book, you need Microchip® C30 ANSI C compiler, and it is not cheap. You have to decide yourself if you will buy C30 or not. The good news is, Microchip allows for 60 days free trial period of a fully functional C30 compiler--a student version. You should download your C30 copy only when you feel you are ready, and you do have the necessary time. All firmware programs in this book have been developed during the 60 days trial period--together with many other tasks--and that means, it is possible. On the other hand, the firmware programs presented in this book may be easily ported on any other C compiler that handles Microchip dsPIC family of controllers, because they were written in ANSI C. All you need is, translate the header file and the ISR definitions to the new environment. As a note, C30 compiler is the last and most powerful firmware tool offered by Microchip. At the time of the 4th Edition, C30 V3.00 range of applications is: 24 dsPIC30F family controllers, each working at maximum 120 MHz and 5V; 37 dsPIC33F family controllers, each working at maximum 160 MHz and 3.3V; and finally 35 PIC24 family controllers, each working at maximum 160 MHz and 3.3V. Altogether, C30 covers 96, 16 bits microcontrollers--this is a lot!

NOTES
The 4th Edition of this book was written specifically to address the changes in MPLAB, C30, Visual Basic 6, and Windows XP/Vista. Therefore, the source code accompanying previous editions in not compatible with the present one, although it is greatly similar. The 4th Edition presents the source code developed with:

1. MPLAB 7.60 tested on Windows XP and Vista
2. C30 V3.00 tested on Windows XP and Vista
3. Visual Basic 6 with SP 6 tested on Windows XP and Vista

We try posting few major source code changes from previous Editions in our website, though not all of them. You need this book for complete, accurate information.

Software Design is implemented using Visual Basic 6 compiler, and you do need this excellent software tool. Although modestly expensive, Visual Basic 6 is one of the cheapest compilers available of the professional type. Used efficiently, it can help you write beneficial, commercial products. For example, the first four SDx (Software Development; "x" is the number assigned) applications in part 3, Software Design, are everything you need to know in order to start developing a commercial product similar to the HyperTerminal one--even way better! Now, I let it to your appreciation if you want to work in part 3 with Visual Basic 5/6/.Net/2003/2005. The best alternative is Visual Basic 6, since it is well supported on both Windows XP and Vista. Further, a (technical) program developed with Visual Basic 6 is perfectly portable to Visual Basic .Net/2003/2005 with minor modifications. Note that Visual Basic .Net and 2003 are not (yet) supported by Windows Vista. If some readers already have Visual Basic 5, I encourage them to try implementing SDx applications using the code in this book as guidance. It should work, if you have the ActiveX controls I used; otherwise, try finding similar controls. LHFSD.exe has been tested on Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP/Vista: it works perfectly well on any of them. Again, the most important is to understand the design method presented, because practical implementations could be easily changed to work on any Windows platform, and even on other Operating Systems.