Making Debugging Easier

[Greg Ross]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Most of the pins on the programming port aren't used. I made a pair of "breakout" connectors that steal pins 7, 8, and 9 from the programming cable and provide remote control of the robot reset and program buttons. The RC end has a "pwm" cable connector for the remote switch pins, and the computer end has a two-way rocker switch with red=RESET and green=PROG sides (though a pair of momentary switches would work too).

Originally Posted by devicenull

Program port pinout is at http://www.ifirobotics.com/docs/program-port-4-7-05.pdf .. pins 9, 4, 6, and 1 are free, I love the IFI support forums

The referenced diagram indicates that pins 7 and 8 (which Alan hijacked for his program and reset buttons) are used! They are RTS and CTS which are used for flow control. Without them, it's (more) likely that your program downloads will fail due to loss of data. I recommend that you use some of the other unused lines rather than 7 and 8.

(BTW, I really like your idea, Alan. I think I will build me one.)