Development of an enhanced educational IDE for 8051/8052 microcontroller

Abstract

This paper presents and explains the development of an IDE for microcontroller 8051/8052 with new features and functionalities. These features include a built-in editor; a keypad editor and auto enabling/disabling array of buttons for eliminating syntax errors. The implementation of the interrupts is entirely based on the 8052 datasheets by taking into consideration the “Interrupt Priorities” and “Interrupt Enables”. Multiple view windows for internal ram, external ram, program memory and special function register enhance the developed IDE. One-pass cross technique was adopted for the assembling phase. The assembler plays the role of assigning addresses, translating mnemonics, and recognizing errors by considering all the 255 instructions and directives Step-by-step, skip-line debugging, breakpoints to be inserted at any part of the source code have been included to ameliorate the students’ interaction with the system. An option is provided to users to manually create external incoming transmission for triggering purposes. The IDE passes the test and verification processes successfully.