PICkit

PICkit is a family of programmers for PIC microcontrollers made by Microchip Technology.

The light display's direction and speed of rotation can be changed with the button and potentiometer on the PICkit board.

This makes it possible to use the programmer with a custom circuit board via an in-circuit serial programming (ICSP) header.

The PICkit 2 firmware allows the user to program and debug most of the 8 and 16-bit PICmicro and dsPIC members of the Microchip product line.

Since the release of V2.61, PICkit 2 PC software now supports a maximum of 4 megabytes of memory for the programmer-to-go feature.

The only functional differences are the use of the USB-C connector (instead of the older micro-B USB) and Bluetooth connectivity.

Ever since its first release, all software source code (firmware, PC application) and hardware schematics are open to the public.

This makes it relatively easy for an end user to modify the programmer for use with a non-Windows operating system such as Linux or Mac OS.

Users have also added such features to the PICkit 2 as 4 MB Programmer-to-go capability, USB buck/boost circuits, RJ12 type connectors, and more.

[7] The device claims to offer some improvements over the PICkit 3 from MicroChip and Clones from other manufacturers.

The software extends the life of the existing PICkit2 and PICkit3 hardware devices by allowing them to work with the newer 8-bit PIC microcontrollers.