1. Overview

The RabbitCore RCM2000 series is an advanced line of modules that incorporates the powerful Rabbit 2000 microprocessor, flash memory, and static RAM, all on a PCB not much larger than the size of a business card.

The RCM2000 series modules are designed for use on a motherboard that supplies power and interfaces with real-world I/O devices. Up to 40 pins of I/O and four serial ports are available for system interfacing.

To accommodate a variety of user and production needs, the RCM2000 family includes versions with varying amounts of onboard memory. All modules within the family are pin-for-pin compatible and may be installed or swapped in a matter of minutes.

1.1 RCM2000 Series Description

There are three production models in the RCM2000 series. Their standard features are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. RCM2000 Features

Model	Features
RCM2000	Full-featured RabbitCore module with 256K flash memory and 512K SRAM.
RCM2010	RCM2000 with 128K SRAM
RCM2020	RCM2000 with 18.432 MHz clock and 128K SRAM

The RCM2000 is the version that is included in the Development Kit.

1.2 Physical and Electrical Specifications

Table 2 lists the basic specifications for all models in the RCM2000 series.

Table 2. RCM2000 Specifications 

Specification	Data
Power Supply	4.75 - 5.25 V DC (120 mA at 25.8048 MHz clock speed)
Size	1.90 × 2.30 × 0.50 inches (48.3 × 58.4 × 12.7 mm)
Environmental	-40°C to 70°C, 5-95% humidity, noncondensing

NOTE	For complete product specifications, see Appendix A in the RabbitCore RCM2000 User's Manual.

The RCM2000 series modules have two 40-pin headers to which cables can be connected, or which can be plugged into matching sockets on a production device. The pinouts for these connectors are shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. RCM2000 Connector Pinout

1.3 Development Software

The RCM2000 series of modules uses the Dynamic C development environment for rapid creation and debugging of runtime applications. Dynamic C provides a complete development environment with integrated editor, compiler and source-level debugger. It interfaces directly with the target system, eliminating the need for complex and unreliable in-circuit emulators.

Dynamic C must be installed on a Windows workstation with at least one free serial (COM) port for communication with the target system. See Chapter 3., "Installing Dynamic C," for complete information on installing Dynamic C.

1.4 How to Use This Manual

This Getting Started manual is intended to give users a quick but solid start with the RCM2000 series modules. It does not contain detailed information on the module hardware capabilities or the Dynamic C development environment. Most users will want more detailed information on some or all of these topics in order to put the RCM2000 to effective use.

1.4.1 Additional Product Information

Detailed information about the RabbitCore RCM2100 series is provided in the RabbitCore RCM2000 User's Manual, which is available on the accompanying CD-ROM in both HTML and Adobe PDF format.

Some advanced users may choose to skip the rest of this introductory manual and proceed directly with the detailed hardware and software information in the User's Manual.

NOTE	We recommend that anyone not thoroughly familiar with Z-World controllers at least read through the rest of this manual to gain the necessary familiarity to make use of the more advanced information.

1.4.2 Additional Reference Information

In addition to the product-specific information contained in the RabbitCore RCM2000 User's Manual, several higher level reference manuals are provided in HTML and PDF form on the accompanying CD-ROM. Advanced users will find these references valuable in developing systems based on the RCM2100 series modules:

• Dynamic C Premier User's Manual
• Rabbit 2000 Microprocessor User's Manual

1.4.3 Using Online Documentation

We provide the bulk of our user and reference documentation in two electronic formats, HTML and Adobe PDF. We do this for several reasons.

We believe that providing all users with our complete library of product and reference manuals is a useful convenience. However, printed manuals are expensive to print, stock, and ship. Rather than include and charge for manuals that every user may not want, or provide only product-specific manuals, we chose to provide our complete documentation and reference library in electronic form with every Development Kit and with our Dynamic C development environment.

Finding Online Documents

The online documentation is installed along with Dynamic C, and an icon for the documentation menu is placed on the workstation's desktop. Double-click this icon to reach the menu. If the icon is missing, create a new desktop icon that points to default.htm in the docs folder, found in the Dynamic C installation folder.

The latest versions of all documents are always available for free, unregistered download from our Web sites as well.

Printing Electronic Manuals

We recognize that many users prefer printed manuals for some uses. Users can easily print all or parts of those manuals provided in electronic form. The following guidelines may be helpful:

• Print from the Adobe PDF versions of the files, not the HTML versions.

NOTE	The most current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader can always be downloaded from Adobe's web site at http://www.adobe.com. We recommend that you use version 4.0 or later.

• Print only the sections you will need to refer to often.
• Print manuals overnight, when appropriate, to keep from tying up shared resources during the work day.
• If your printer supports duplex printing, print pages double-sided to save paper and increase convenience.

NOTE	If you do not have a suitable printer or do not want to print the manual yourself, most retail copy shops (e.g., Kinkos, AlphaGraphics, etc.) will print the manual from the PDF file and bind it for a reasonable charge--about what we would have to charge for a printed and bound manual.