BV COMM

The BV Terminal emulator has undergone many changes and crops up in many different forms. Here is a list in date order, BV_COMM2 is the latest version.

  • BV-Com This is the most basic and simplest to use and will work with all BV devices. This is the basis for the two other variants.
  • BV-Term This is an older version of BV-Com but it has been modified to cope with Forth libraries. This software should only be used with BV-Forth.
  • BV-Tool This is used mainly for the touch screen display but can also be used for the BV523
  • BV_COM2 This is a combination of most of the above that has facilities for boot loading hex or binary files, converting BMP files to BMC and more. As this is used mainly for ByPic products it is held on that website.
The above programs do not require any installation, just place the .exe and .ini file in a suitable directory and double click on the .exe file

As mentioned before all of the above software share a common base and they (mostly) have the following features that make them suitable for BV devices:

Reset
The reset icon is connected to DTR and when pressed will toggle the DTR line for approximately 1/2 second. Most BV devices have their reset line connected to DTR and so this enables a reset without having to disconnect or press buttons on the board.

Load / Reload file
There is more information about loading files here.
BV Devices, particularly microcontrollers use a very simple but highly effective protocol for downloading files from a PC to the device. The procedure is as follows:

  1. The device will wait for a line of text - this can be a hex file generated by a compiler or a line of BASIC
  2. BV_Com sends a line of text and waits for the device to send ACK which has a byte value of 6
  3. The device processes the line just received and when it is ready for another line will send ACK
  4. Once started if BV_Com does not receive an ACK within a reasonable time it will abort the transaction (timeout)

The settings must have the correct check box ticked for this. There is also another icon that will allow the same file to be sent without selecting it again. This is useful for the edit-download cycle of program development.

x-modem (only available on BV_COM1)
This protocol is also built in. Version 1 down loaders use this to transfer programs to the microcontroller Flash.

Binary Load
Later version allow the loading of binary files to an attached microcontroller. This is most useful for downloading files to an SD Card. For this to work the DTR (hardware handshaking) must be working so there is an added level of complexity. The later boot loaders Version 2.x use binary transfer in favor of x-modem.