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last updated:
2004.11.10

This page is obsolete and provided for historical reference only. You can find up-to-date information about embedded systems and microcontrollers on www.embedeo.org.

DPPROG is an electronic device intended for programming parallel memories. DPPROG communicates via standart serial COM port RS232 to the host. This allows easy interface, no matter what OS is being used on the host.

partial view of the schematic

Specifics:
Device:
- Low cost hardware, built around PIC16F871 microcontroller.
- Single power supply - also used as reference voltage.
- Onboard high voltage converter. Step-up switching regulator provides 12.5V for old-style chips.
- Easily supported wide address bus - low cost shift register.
- Written enirely in assembly firmware fits in just 2K program words.
- Standart serial interface (no need of special drivers on the PC-side).

WARNING: The DPPROG's schematic and accompanying software are provided without any kind of warranty. Use them at your own risk.
Download:
dpprog01.png - Electrical scheme of DPPROG revision 0.1 in PNG format - browser viewable (37KB).
dpprog01.pdf - The same schematic intended for printing - PDF format (42KB).
Software for the PC side, or firmware of DPPROG is available upon request only.

ZMAN is a program which tracks all currently opened and named windows on your system. It also provides ability to switch the so called "topmost" property of almost any of your opened applications. It contains a color picker as well. You can visualy select a point on the screen and see its color triplet. The program is self contained, i.e. you need just the executable file to launch it.

Snapshot of the program's window

Specifics:
- Win32 programming techniques in plain C achieve small footprint (the executable is 25KB).
- Mouse capturing and visual selection of applications.
- Dealing with the regisry - storing user dependent settings.
- Properly designed, single thread application is robust enough.

The program has been made in the nice IDE Dev-C++, which includes the MinGW compiler. So the easiest way to build the program from sources is to install the Dev-C++ and use the zman.dev file in the source distribution. But, probably, it would not be hard to compile the sources with any C compiler capable to deal with Win32 executables.

WARNING:
This program is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. You must read the file README.TXT included in the zman-0.9-src.zip before you use any other file.
Download:
zman-0.9-src.zip - version 0.9 (beta) source code and executable (approx. 50KB)

Most of the pictures are made in GIMP environment.