USB MSD Bootloader for PIC Microcontrollers
In some of our newer products we have included a facility to upgrade firmware via USB. However, we went one step further and got rid of the need to install any application - making upgrades OS independent and simpler for the user.
I think this is a useful project and have decided to release a cut-down version into the public domain. Hopefully it can be improved by the community! I look forward to your feedback...
The USB Bootloader is designed for Microchip PIC microcontrollers and has the following features:
- Emulates a USB Mass Storage Device (MSD) i.e. a flash drive
- Enables drag and drop firmware upgrades (using pre-formatted files) on any OS
- Facility to save/restore application data
Changes:
17/7/08: Revised documentation
How do you deal with Mac and Linux wanting to write hidden files to your device? It seems a .TRASHES. folder and sundry 12k to 16k of baggage is involved when connecting to these OS.s.
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When I wrote the bootloader I tested it both on Mac and Linux. After making a couple of tweaks to support these OS's it seemed to work fine. There are a couple of caveats regarding Linux which are detailed in the documentation.
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