MPIDE

Introduction and purpose of the IDE

MPIDE (Multi-Platform Integrated Development Environment) is an Arduino-like project of chipKIT™, which allows you to reprogram the board with different custom sketches. The IDE can be downloaded from the official site of chipKIT™: http://chipkit.net/started/
It is used to reflash the program memory of the microcontroller without an external programmer after the bootloader is programmed.

IDE features

As a difference of the other similar IDEs (like Arduino, Maple, Pinguino etc.) this one gives you the opportunity to work with different kind of microcontrollers. You don't have to change the IDE, in case you need to work with another family of microprocessor.

Without any modifications MPIDE 0.023 has libraries like:
- EEPROM
- Ethernet
- Firmata
- LiquidCrystal
- Matrix
- MAX6675
- OneWire
- SD card
- Servo
- Software Serial
- SPI
- Sprite
- Stepper
- Wire (I2C)

and for PIC32 processors there are few additional libraries:
- DSPI
- SoftPWMServo
- SoftSPI

For all those libraries chipKit™ also provides an examples to demonstrate functionality of all of them. In addition to all these they have also simple examples like blinking LED, push button, serial communication etc.

Inside the IDE there is an embedded Serial Monitor which allows you easily to communicate with the host computer via virtual USB COM port. This is possible only when the board is not in programming (bootloader) state. So with this feature you don't need an external terminal program like PuTTY, Siow, HyperTerminal, TeraTerm etc. in order to transfer data between the host and the device.