An economical development board to experiment with USB devices based upon Microchip’s PIC16C765. All pins are brought out to headers for easy access. The pins along the  edge are setup so that a standard character LCD (with a straight 14 pin connector) can be used. The board can be powered externally (it has a 5v on-board regulator) or via the USB bus.

The PIC16C765 is a non-flash mcu and requires a UV light for erasure. It can be programmed using any standard PIC programmer like MELab’s EPIC board or Microchip’s  PICStart programmer. MELab’s PICBAsicPro as well as Crownhill’s PICBasicPlus have built-in USB routines. Since the 16C765 is low speed USB device it can easily be interfaced with Windows as a HID device  and use Microsoft’s native drivers. More information, code samples and Window’s interface examples are available at www.lvr.com. Jan Axelson’s book USB  Complete is an excellent source for detailed USB information.

Windows demo software which allows one to communicate with the pUSB board in conjunction with the pUSB hex code written in PICBasicPro Ver 2.42. If an LCD is connected to  the development board, this software can be used to send text to it. The PIC code sets up Port A as analog, providing up to five channels. All of the Port D pins can be used for general I/O. Port B is  also available if the LCD is not used. All other unused pins are available. The software can set or reset any individual pin. ADC values received from the pUSB board are displayed as decimal values. A  ‘status’ section graphically displays a ports condition, by making pins that are high the color green and pins that are low red. The Windows software as well as the PIC code is available here.