C8051F330 serial port programmer

Maybe would be better to buy a programmer from Silabs:

With this device you can debug the chips, too. I've used it in this test project:

It was part of this development kit:

Looks like you can download the Silicon Labs IDE, so you don't have to buy the full development kit, if you have already the microcontroller. It depends on if you want to do it for fun, but I couldn't built it for $35.00 myself, if I would calculate my hourly wage and with RS232 you can't use it with the IDE.

The nice folks at Silabs have published the method for downloading on the JTAG port. Rs232 is a an easy enough thing to read. You just need to create a program in a micro of some type to translate. You can buy just such a thing from them for less than it is likely to cost you to build one.

Unfortunately Silabs didn't publish the debugging hooks of the micros so you are stuck using their pod for the debugging purposes.

Also, the Silabs IDE only sort of works under "wine" so if you need to debug code you either have to put your computer at risk by running the virus-magnet OS or you have to live with a bunch of stuff not working.

There is a gnu project to reverse engineer the interface but it doesn't seem to work. They took a path that I think is a dead end. They used the gdb model for the user interface. Unfortunately gdb is not the right model for debugging 8051 assembly language programs. It is too bound to the ideas of debugging higher level stuff.

Just got back from support with silabs.

for 330 uC, they have JTAG or c2 methods. documents (AN-127? & another one) downloadable from their website. as for c8051f121 or others, go JTAG.

JTAG means a whole lot of programming compared with rs232.

I don't like such a company without too much support for open source people.

I've found some JTAG interfacing circuits for FPGA and I have an Altera eva board with JTAG. When I got time I need to work out this problem it wouldn't be too much difficult.

The JTAG code is most likely out there and free.

I don't like their keeping the details of the debugging stuff secret but I like the micro so I put up with it.

I have a modified version of the Jam Stapl player that Altera open- sourced several years ago. With my version the only components in the parallel port downloading cable are some 470R resistors.

just made a parallel port programmer for f8051f330d in two hours, fairly easy. next i need a free compiler like sdcc+ some kind of free ide.