Its now 7:34 am, I just read this thread from start to finish, I would like to say it went completely over my head but some must have aimed a bit lower as I now have one hell of an headache........

I read it as I have just got a shiny new programmer and a 18f2550, I was looking for ways to port some old f88 stuff I wrote that used serial comunication, I want to it to use usb...

I found that they are some examples to make the 2550 emulate a serial port, and I may go that way, seems easier to port that way.

Then I read more and got more ambitious, and was wondering if I can port it over with the 2550 running fake serial over usb, but drop a bootloader in it before my old f88 code and use the bootloader over usb, then I wont need to use my pc serial port at all?


To summise, can I re-burn the chip via usb with a boot loader to debug my ported f88 code?

If I can, am I right in thinking all I need is to give up one i/o line to a switch to trigger the bootloader?

And like most things come in three's (especially questions), how to edit/burn to usb? with the f88 I usually create a hex file, quit basic, load the programmer software (winpic/whatever) and burn chip, remove from programmer, get a pin stuck in thumb and lose blood, stick in proto board, bend a pin etc...