Have you ever wished you could examine and manipulate the pins and peripherals of your MCU interactively, while it was live and connected to your embedded circuit, rather than using just "reset and run" debugging? If so, StickOS BASIC may be for you! With StickOS BASIC, you can log in to your MCU using nothing but a terminal emulator, and then take full control of the MCU from a command-line, just as if you had an In-Circuit Emulator. StickOS can run either in "slave" mode, tethered to and controlled by a host computer as a glorified intelligent I/O port, or it can run in "master" mode, programmed in

This article on chipKIT software SPI library is written by Gene Apperson, Digilent Inc.

At Digilent we have been working to extend the chipKIT software framework beyond its original Arduino-inspired roots. Recent enhancements enable the framework to be used with many different systems based on PIC32 MCUs. In order to support arbitrary hardware configurations, we implemented a general-purpose Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) library that does not rely on dedicated hardware peripherals. The Software SPI (SoftSPI) library allows the creation of any number of software based (bit-banged) SPI ports.

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a four wire synchronous serial

If you saw our post about the new chipKIT Lenny, and you're totally excited, we have more news for you! In advance of the production release, Majenko Technologies, originator and designer of the Lenny, is offering early access to this new board. You can purchase a limited edition, sneak preview of the Lenny before the production boards roll out. These boards are production-ready, just without the packaging. So get yours today!

For all the details, see [Majenko Technologies' chipKIT Lenny

Overview

Certain varieties of Microchip Technology's PIC32 Microcontrollers are available in Small Plastic Dual In-line Packages (SPDIP). This packaging makes it very easy to build up your own chipKIT board at home using common tools found in the home hobbyist/Maker workshop. Other 32-bit platforms would require specialized equipment to solder their fine pitch packaging to a custom board.

This post will demonstrate how to build up a chipKIT Platform onto a solderless breadboard using a PIC32MX250F128B 32-bit Microcontroller and some readily available components.

[**NOTE: This application uses a voltage provided off of the USB line.

Has your XBOX ever overheated due to excessive use? If so, have you ever wondered what you can do to stop it?

In a fan-control project--developed by Austin Stanton after his XBOX 360 died--this is exactly the issue he is trying to correct. Once he finished grieving for his lost gaming system, Austin was able to focus on how to fix the problem so that his next system doesn't die. After doing some research, he suspected his entertainment system was the culprit, not allowing enough heat to escape.

Austin decided that the best way to regulate the temperature was to