Switching from a 16F628 to a 16F88

Yep ! I’ve just received a couple of PIC 16F88 microcontrollers. Hard to find (farnell), but finally got them.

16F88 is great compared to 16F628 because:

• It has twice more memory (4K words)
• It has a built-in ADC
• and most importantly, its memory can be programmed through software, that is, it can handle a bootloader.

So I start to play. I launch the last version of ic-prog using wine, connect to my PIC01 programmer, and then try to program a bootloader (Tiny Bootloader), try to connect to it and flash a hex file… It fails. “PIC not found”… Errh ? OK, try again. Make sure the device is verified. OK. Make sure the device is correctly connected. OK. Try #2… Failed… Well, it seems starting by trying to use a bootloader isn’t what can be called a “Hello World” with this new PIC. I need the “blinking led” test. Got a program from a website. Program it. Test it. OK. It works, the LED is blinking. I then try to compile one of my own program (from SirBot). After fighting an hour to find the JAL libraries and compile the program, I try it. The PIC is supposed to echo chars, through the USART. Nothing… Nothing from the PIC…

Everythings work like a charm using a 16F628, so why not now ? Maybe because PICs are not the same I’ve read that “pins are compatible”, but it seems I’ve read it too fast. Looking at the specs, pins are not the same, starting by USART’s:

I should really read the specs. At least, look at the pictures…