PIC Development on MAC

[chamod]

Hi,
I've been doing hobbyist pic work for some time on a windows pc. (mostly xc8, bit using MPASM). And i use a pickit2 knockoff to program.
I recently got a macbook and thought I'd start working on the pic with that one. But only option I see is MPLAB X, which is too much of a hassle for my small work.
What i need is a good interface to the pickit2 from the mac(Because microchip has a xc8 release for mac). It would be great if i can use the debugging features and especially the logic analyser.
I tried this one, and it is too old (2009).
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/pickit2-tools-on-mac-os-x/
And some of the executables I found were compiled for old power PC. Not Intel macs
So please let me know if you have had any experience with using pickit2 with a mac.

[nerdyHippy]

I know that it's frustrating to say "I know about ___ and don't like it" in the OP and have commenters ignore it, but the PICkit 2 works great with MPLAB X, including debugging. I doubt there is anything else as polished on for PIC development on OS X. I'm not sure how the logic analyzer works, as I've never had reason to use it.

[tiborsimon]

I am currently working on a project, and I am using a MAC, MPLABX, PICkit3 combo. I am new to PICs, and I've never used a PICkit2, but my PICkit3 often causes me a headache. Sometimes it became irresponsible and I have to restart the entire MPLABX IDE to make it work again, and sometimes the debug won't work properly.

I don't know if this is typical, but I have a bad experience using a MAC for embedded projects (beyond the Arduino IDE of course.. ).

[GiskardReventlov]

I've  no experience with pickit2 on any platform.

Check macports and there's another open source packager for mac. There may be something that'll work.

[kripton2035]

best option is to use a virtual machine for electronic development on the mac
vmware fusion is the best when dealing with external hardware (that is not a printer or scanner or mouse or keyboard ...)
the other parallel and virtualbox dont work very well (mikroe prog does not work for example)

[tiborsimon]

Yes, this is the best option, but I had troubles with VMWare.. My AVR Dragon not worked properly (I can't update its firmware due to VMWare's slow USB handling.. I contacted with them but they can't find any solution. Finally Atmel has released an update for Atmel studio that solved the problem. Before that, I had to use my secondary PC to use the Dragon..)

In my opinion MACs are not the best options for embedded development. Get a decent PC instead and you will be fine

[Tac Eht Xilef]

best option is to use a virtual machine for electronic development on the mac
vmware fusion is the best when dealing with external hardware (that is not a printer or scanner or mouse or keyboard ...)
the other parallel and virtualbox dont work very well (mikroe prog does not work for example)

Virtualbox can be made to work quite well - but it sometimes takes a bit of dicking around to get host-guest port & device mapping to work with non-generic hardware.

In my opinion MACs are not the best options for embedded development. Get a decent PC instead and you will be fine

Sad but true, although the situation is slowly getting better. At least with a Mac you can use Bootcamp to dual-boot OSX & Win - and you can also use the same Windows partition as the guest inside Parallels, VirtualBox, and (I believe) VMware.

[jc101]

I use VMware Fusion and Windows 8.1 64bit, using the MicroElektronika compilers and programmers and it all works fine.  I did have to tell VMware to drop the Mac USB3 such that the PC side only see's it as a USB2 or the programmer would randomly stop. {note to self: programmers had an update recently, need to see if thats been fixed}

Running in Unity mode, the windows software is just like any other application window on the Mac, I can cut and paste between the two etc.

I actually have 3 VM's currently on my machine, two Windows 7 and the Windows 8.1 one, with an XP one on an external disk for some really old cranky software.  For me it's the best of both worlds and just choose the right OS for the job at hand.

[GiskardReventlov]

I wonder if you've looked in the app store?  I do this kind of thing too frequently. I'll look all over for a solution and find out that there's a ready solution available.  Sometimes it's just a package I didn't know was available, etc.

[steverino]

I'm running Parallels 9 as a virtual machine on my mac and it works great, but I haven't tried it for electronic development.  I wouldn't expect  any problems though.  I'd stay clear of Vmware - it was too buggy for me.  You could also run windows under bootcamp on the mac, but then you'll end up with a dual boot configuration where you aren't running both os's simultaneously.  Don't forget you'll need a licensed copy of windows to run in this configuration.

[monkeyman]

Hi jc101,
I have recently changed to Mac and I have a similar setup to you: Fusion + Win8.1/64bit.
My Pickit 2 clone hardware is recognised when I plug it in, but when I run the Pickit 2 programmer, it can't find it. I wonder if I am having a usb 3 / usb 2 issue. Since reading your post I have tried to find a way to downgrade the usb as you have done. I haven't been able to work it out. Can you please explain how you did it?
Thanks.

I use VMware Fusion and Windows 8.1 64bit, using the MicroElektronika compilers and programmers and it all works fine.  I did have to tell VMware to drop the Mac USB3 such that the PC side only see's it as a USB2 or the programmer would randomly stop. {note to self: programmers had an update recently, need to see if thats been fixed}

[jc101]

Hi jc101,
I have recently changed to Mac and I have a similar setup to you: Fusion + Win8.1/64bit.
My Pickit 2 clone hardware is recognised when I plug it in, but when I run the Pickit 2 programmer, it can't find it. I wonder if I am having a usb 3 / usb 2 issue. Since reading your post I have tried to find a way to downgrade the usb as you have done. I haven't been able to work it out. Can you please explain how you did it?
Thanks.

Stop the virtual machine and unplug the programmer.  Go into the guest settings, go into "USB & Bluetooth", click the "Advanced USB options" arrow and change the "USB Compatibility from 3.0 to 2.0".  That is what did the trick for me, I can still use a USB 3.0 external hub and plug USB2.0 devices into that and they get offered to the guest OS.

[DonRon]

I am using a mac mini and I tried several configurations - mplab x with mac os, virtual machines parallels and vmware. But there was always some trouble connecting pickit 2 and pickit 3 - not always but sometimes.
So I ended up in using bootcamp to install a windows xp partition. Now everything works fine - no more problems. (And now I am also able to upgrade the firmware of my ham radio equipment - that didn't work using a virtual machine with windows xp.).
Maybe this is an option for you - use bootcamp to install windows.

Cheers,

Ronald

[monkeyman]

Thanks DonRon and jc101.

I tried the reassignment of USB 3.0 ports to USB 2.0 as you outlined jc101, and it worked.
I can now run my Pickit 2 software. It recognises the Pickit 2 clone I have connected, and works just as it did on my old WinXP machine (so far anyway). I run it from the Windows 8.1 environment (care of VM Fusion) on my Mac.
I decided to try the Mac version of MPLAB X since I have this new fashion accessory (MacBook Air). I haven't tried to connect to the Pickit 2 directly from MPLAB yet. But so far I find the MPLAB X seems to generally work well (had to sort out a few issues regarding __delay functions etc.. with a bit of google help).
Thanks for the feedback on bootcamp DonRon. I was hoping I wouldn't have to go there and start all over again. (But with some other annoying issues I have yet to sort out, it is still an option).

Thanks again,

Monkeyman.

[katzohki]

I've done some PIC development on my Intel Macbook at home. MPLAB X works pretty well, but the Pickit 3 is a little flaky on Mac. Fortunately, the Pickit 2 works just fine on the Mac version. I'd say your best options are as follows:

Either install MPLAB X in Mac OS and use it OR
Boot Camp into windows on your Mac and use your preferred version of MPLAB there.

Good luck, let us know what you finally go with.

[chamod]

Thanks everyone for the kind and helpful responses, and I apologise for taking so long. My current setup has not changed much.
I still use xc8 compiler + pk2cmd to interface with pickit2. I tried various virtual machines but I couldn't find a consistent solution(Most of the time USB interface would stop working).
I was used to the poor yet manageable logic analyser feature on the picKit2 when i was working on Windows, and that's what i missed most when i switched to mac. But hopefully I can get a Saleae Logic Analyser or a Rigol Scope and that will solve the problem of logic analyser for me.