Electronics NEA
This page primarily focuses on the EDUQAS A-level Electronics Component 3, task 1.
This page primarily focuses on the EDUQAS A-level Electronics Component 3, task 1.
Task 1 of the Eduqas A-level Electronics specification is to use assembly language to program a PIC chip. The course does not specify which chip to program in particular, but there is an expectation to be familiar with the PIC16f88 chip for exams, so this chip is recommended for the task.
Eduqas provide a template for use to provide to learners to write their program, however I have discovered that this is compatible with the old Microchip MPASM compiler, which comes installed on older versions of Microchip's MPLAB X IDE. However, at my college the IT policy requires the most up-to-date software. This means the latest version of MPLAB X IDE is used - at the time of writing v6.15, which does not come with MPASM as, since 2021, this has been replaced with the newer XC8 compiler.
If you try and use the Eduqas template with the new XC8 compiler it does not work. So to support this change I have written my own template, adapted from the Eduqas one, which does work under the new compiler. I think this template makes it easier to see where learners can and cannot edit code, unless they are fully confident in changing the chip configuration.