Documentation for Firmware D, version 1.2 for UBW Boards
(New version 1.2, 07/23/2006)
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Note: SparkFun is shipping Firmware D version 1.1 on their UBW boards.
This means that if you buy a UBW board from Spark Fun, you will get a board with Firmware D version 1.1 on it. If you want version 1.2 (described on this page) you will need to upgrade your UBW as described here. (It is a very easy procedure.) Get the FW D v1.2 hex file here. There have been reports of problems after upgrading from Firmware D v1.1 to v1.2, where the UBW would no longer be recognized by Windows anymore. It has not happened to me, but to several others. Their work-around is to use the Bootloader to write Firmware C onto the UBW, make sure it works, then write Firmware D v1.2. For them it has fixed the problem. I'm looking into why this happens, but so far no clues.

Description:
Firmware version D is a more advanced (and more complicated) firmware version than Firmware C. Wheras C just allows you to write out 8 bits at a time to Port B, Firmware D allows you to use every one of the 19 I/O pins on the UBW Board as an input or an output, and to read the state of every one of those pins. In order to do this, it has an actual command structure that must be followed when communicating with it. Version 1.2 now also allows for reading up to 9 analog inputs (10 bit, 0 to 5V), reading and writing anywhere in memory (PEEK and POKE basically) and doing operations on just a single pin (set the pin direction, read the pin, write to the pin).

Version 1.2 also fixes a bug in version 1.1 that would prevent the UBW from receiving new characters if it's output buffer was full. This would require a UBW reboot and some playing around on the PC side (closing/opening the COM port) to fix. Now with version 1.2 this bug has been fixed.

Commands:
    The "C" Command: (modified in v1.2)
    The "O" Command:
    The "I" Command
    The "V" Command
    The "R" Command
   The "T" Command (modified in v1.2)
   The "A" Command (NEW for v1.2)
   The "MR" Command (NEW for v1.2)    The "MW" Command (NEW for v1.2)    The "PD" Command (NEW for v1.2)    The "PI" Command (NEW for v1.2)
   The "PO" Command (NEW for v1.2)
Hints on using Firmware D:

Errors Reponses:
    There are some rules about sending these commands to the UBW. If any of the rules is violated, an error charater will be sent back. You can monitor the serial port for these characters to know what you are doing wrong.
    Other things to note:

Files:
    The full zip file for Firmware D v1.2, including all source and project files necessary to rebuilt it are located here.
    If you just want the Firmware D v1.2 HEX file, it is here.



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