Bascom requires a programming cable to interface with AVR microcontrollers. Getting the cable installed and configured properly can be a bit of a challenge. This guide will walk you through the steps required to connect and configure the Sample Electronics programmer to work with Bascom.

Step 1 - Building the Sample Electronics Programming Cable

The Sample Electronics Programming cable is part of the CIRCBot Part 2 kit and the Chibot's Tabletop Kit. Please refer to the instructions included in these kits to build the cable. The cable schematic is in Bascom's help file or you can view it here:

 Sample Electronics Programming Cable Schematic

After building the cable, use the schematic to double check the connections. Note - The pinouts on the 5-pin connector are not the same for the CIRCBot and the Tabletop Bot. Be sure to verify the pinouts based on the documentation for the kit you are builiding.

Once the cable is built, plug it into the parallel port on your computer. If you computer does not have a parallel port, you will need to add one. Look for  a PCI card with at least one ECP/EPP parallel port.  A USB to Parallel adapter will not work!

Step 2 - The Parallel Port

For the Sample Electronics programming cable to work, the parallel port must be configured for  ECP or EPP mode and you will need to know the address it uses. You should be able to tell what mode it is in by checking the Parallel Port in Device Manager. To access Device Manager, go to Control Panel, and click on System. In the System Dialog Box, select the Hardware tab then click on Device Manager. You should see a window like this:

Look for the Port (COM & LPT) section and expand it. You should see a Parallel port list similar to the one in the image above. Notice that the parallel port is listed as ECP. You may need to use your PC's BIOS configuration menu to change the parallel port to ECP or EPP mode. Please refer to your PC's documentation on how to configure BIOS. 

Double click on the parallel port to bring up the Properties window. Click the Resources tab. You should see something like this:

The I/O Range tells us the address used by the parallel port.  We need this information for Bascom.  The address is typically 378, 278 or 3BC but since my parallel port was an add-in card, the address is 8C00. Write down the address for Bascom in the next step.

You can close the Device Manager windows and launch Bascom.

Step 3 - Setting up Bascom

After launching Bascom, click on Options, Programmer. You should see a dialog box like this:

Select Sample Electronics programmer from the Programmer list.  Next, select the LPT-address that matched the one you wrote down. If your address is not on the list, click the button with the + sign and type in your address. Click Save then select the new address from the list. Click Ok and you should now be able to use the Sample Electronics programming cable with Bascom.

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