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» Why SirPic?
» PDA Compatability
» PIC Compatability
» Products » SirPic for Palm
SirPic Features:
Supports both Serial (RS232) and Infra-red (SIR/Framed/IrComm) modes of communication.
Transmit and Receive capability, for terminal or data logging applications.
32KB or 2000 line Scrollable history buffer.
Real-time display of incoming data.
Supports Hex mode and Text mode.
Clear Screen and Bell Sound commands in Text Mode.
Optional time stamping of data.
Optional byte count stamping of data.
Optional Cyclic buffer mode.
Optional logging of data errors.
Optional local echo for transmit characters
Optional end of line handling for CR/LF/CR+LF.
Configurable bucket buffer size (for high speed baud rates)
Ability to enter transmit data as a hex byte.
Ability to Export data to Palm MemoPad (and HotSync to PC)
Supports both standard and custom baud rates
Session Statistics for incoming data traffic
Auto-save on exit
Download the SirPic User Guide for full details.
Palm PDA Minimum requirements:
- Palm OS 3.5 or later
- Application storage space: 40KB
- Data storage space: 1KB to 35KB
- Runtime memory requirements: 35KB to 70KB
- PDA hardware requirements
SirPic Full or Lite flavour?
SirPic is available in full and lite flavours:
| Functionality | SirPic Lite | SirPic Full |
| History Buffer |
1KB or 13 lines
(no scrollback history) |
32KB or 2000 lines
(scrollable history) |
Export Captured Data to MemoPad |
NO |
YES |
Customisable Non-Standard Baud Rate |
NO |
YES |
Traditionally PIC developers have used the following means of input and output with their custom PIC project:
- Simple switch (for on/off input)
- Simple LED (for on/off output)
- Liquid Crystal Display (LCD typically with 1,2,4 lines of alphanumeric display)
- PC/laptop/PDA with Serial port and terminal emulator (eg vt100)
Each of these traditional "hardwired" methods has advantages and disadvantages over one another.
Now, there is a new display alternative, SirPic.
SirPic combines all the benefits of Palm portability, high resolution display,
and processing power as the superior alternative.
SirPic Benefits:
- Option of using a wireless display (compared to wired LCD display)
- Low cost SirPic transmitter circuit (in comparison to LCD display and controller)
- Save on LCD display unit cost per PIC project.
- Share Palm PDA easily between multiple PIC projects.
Due to the custom nature of PIC projects, they are usually one-off projects for use by the
designer. SirPic is also ideal for project prototypes.
- High resolution PDA display with large history buffer (compared to 1,2 or 4 line for LCD display).
- For PIC Assembler programmers: A Simple TxChar() routine call from PIC code to transmit a character (approx 40 byte code space).
No complex or quirky initialisation routines as for LCD display.
- For PIC BASIC programmers: Use the existing "serout" command to transmit infra red data transparently.
- Uses only 1 output pin from PIC (several pins typically required to interface to LCD display controller).
- Small physical footprint of IR transmitter LED on PIC enclosure box (compared to LCD display).
SirPic Benefits:
- Optional Wirlesss infra-red support, compared to wired serial connection.
- Small Portable display unit, compared to PC/laptop.
- Supports use of custom baud rates.
PCs usually only support discrete standard baud rates such as 1200,4800,9600 etc.
However for security reasons or clock speed reasons your PIC application may wish
to use a custom baud rate (eg 8700). Sirpic will quite happily cope with this, but most PCs
will interpret as garbage data.
- SirPic supports optional time stamping of data, whereas vt100 emulators do not.
- SirPic has a 32K history buffer, whereas vt100 emulators on PDAs usually have no history buffer.
- SirPic supports a hex dump mode of logging data, whereas most terminal emulators do not.
- SirPic allows transmit characters to be entered as a hex byte.
SirPic supports both wired (serial) and wireless (infra-red) modes of communication.
Lets compare possible reasons for using one over the other for your custom PIC project.
Advantages of using Infra-red versus Wired Serial:
- Wireless infra red connection
- Palm PDA safe from electrical damage.
- Data can be broadcasted to multiple Palm PDA devices.
- not susceptible to electrical interference from other high frequency sources.
- Infra-red reception consumes less PDA battery power, compared to wired serial RS232.
Advantages of using Wired Serial versus Infra-red:
- not susceptible to light interference from other infra-red sources.
- Ability to implement hardware flow control.
SirPic supports both sending and receiving of data for both Serial and Infra-red data sources.
However, this is assuming your Palm PDA is equipped with suitable hardware capabilities.
Serial logging:
In order to use the Serial logging capability of SirPic, your Palm PDA must be equipped
with a Serial hotsync cable. Some of the recent entry-level Palm PDAs only support USB hotsync
cable connection, and do not provide a serial RS232 connection. On these Palm PDAs it
will not be possible to log serial RS232 data, as no physical serial port exists on the device.
Infra-red logging:
All Palm PDA's for OS3.5 or later support infra-red ports. However, some restrictions apply to
Palm devices based on the OMAP processor (Tungsten T,
Tungsten T2, Tungsten E, Zire 21, Treo 600 and Zire 71) have hardware restrictions on incoming
infra-red data. These Palm devices only accept incoming data which comprise of complete IrLAP frames.
If you are a PIC developer intending to use SirPic for infra-red data logging, these PDAs will require
the data to be encapsulated in a frame. This requires header and trailer bytes
to be transmitted at the start of frame (SOF=0xC0) and end of frame (EOF=0xC1), framing the data bytes.
A simple test to see whether your Palm PDA accepts raw infra-red data (SIR) or only framed infra-red data,
is to attempt to log infra-red data from a TV remote (9600 baud, No Parity, 8 bits, 1 stop bit). If you
receive garbage data, this is actually a good sign, as the non framed data is being passed on via
the hardware to the SirPic software.
| PDA | RS232
Serial Port | Infra Red
(SIR) | Infra Red
(Framed) |
Palm III | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm IIIc | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm IIIe | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm IIIxe | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm V | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm Vx | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m100 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m105 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m125 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m130 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m500 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m505 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm m515 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm i705 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm Zire | NO | YES | YES |
| Palm Zire 21 | NO | NO | YES |
| Palm Zire 31 | NO | YES | YES |
| Palm Zire 71 | YES | NO | YES |
| Palm Zire 72 | NO | YES | YES |
| Palm Tungsten C | YES | ??? | YES |
| Palm Tungsten E | ??? | NO | YES |
| Palm Tungsten W | YES | ??? | YES |
| Palm Tungsten T | YES | NO | YES |
| Palm Tungsten T2 | YES | NO | YES |
| Palm Tungsten T3 | YES | YES | YES |
| Palm Tungsten T5 | ??? | ??? | YES |
| Palm Treo 600 | ??? | NO | YES |
| Palm TX | ??? | YES | YES |
| Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 | ??? | YES | YES |
| Sony Clie NR70V/U | ??? | YES | YES |
Please help me to keep this table updated with your PDA compatability test results.
SirPic currently supportss PIC Assembler developers for the following popular Microchip PIC devices:
12F629, 12F675, 16F84, 16F627, 16F628. If you wish to use SirPic with PIC assembler on other devices, the source code for the SirPic routines is
freely available, and can be ported with minimal effort. All SirPic routines for PIC devices
are designed using the PIC micro upward compatible instruction set (to retain compatibility with
future PIC devices). PIC BASIC users are supported for all PIC devices where the SEROUT command is available.
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