In 2026, when most people are designing ESP32 or STM32 boards with high-speed interfaces and Wi-Fi stacks, I intentionally decided to build something “old”: a PIC16F877A development board.
Not because it’s trendy.Not because it’s powerful.But because it forces you to understand fundamentals.
I’ve always liked the PIC architecture. It’s simple, deterministic, and brutally honest. If something doesn’t work, it’s not because of a hidden abstraction layer — it’s because you wired it wrong, configured a register incorrectly, or misunderstood the hardware. That’s exactly the kind of learning I wanted.
So I built my own development board completely from scratch on a single-sided perfboard.
No PCB.No autorouter.No fabricated board.Just soldering iron, jumper wires, datasheet, and a multimeter.
I wanted a board that:
- Exposes all major peripherals clearly
- Has basic built-in hardware like buttons, LED, buzzer
- Includes a small prototyping area
- Allows UART and I²C experimentation
- Forces me to debug hardware physically
Most dev boards abstract everything away. You plug USB, upload code, and things just work. That’s convenient but it hides what’s actually happening electrically.
I wanted to see everything.
The Build ProcessThe board started with just the PIC16F877A and a USB-C breakout for 5V input.
From there:
- Added decoupling capacitors near VDD/VSS
- Designed the MCLR reset circuit with pull-up and button
- Added crystal oscillator with proper load capacitors
- Broke out UART and I²C headers
- Designed a transistor-driven buzzer circuit
- Added user LED and button
- Integrated a small prototyping area
Routing everything on single-sided perfboard was the hardest part. Since the board only had pads on one side, I had to carefully plan solder bridges and wire jumpers to avoid shorts. Power rails had to be routed manually using solder traces.
It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t elegant.
But it worked.
Problems I FacedThis wasn’t smooth at all.
- I accidentally used a dead transistor while debugging the buzzer and wasted time assuming my circuit was wrong.
- I had to verify every net with a multimeter to avoid hidden shorts.
- Programming on Linux required fixing USB permission issues before MPLAB IPE detected the PICkit3
- PIC16F877A microcontroller with full GPIO access
- USB-C power input
- On-board buzzer and user LED
- Push buttons (reset and user)
- UART & I²C headers for external modules
- Prototyping area (baby breadboard style - 170 points)
- Designed for learn-by-doing and hardware fundamentals
Main Components
- PIC16F877A microcontroller (DIP-40)
- USB-C breakout board
- 10 µF electrolytic capacitor
- 100 nF ceramic capacitors
- 10 kΩ resistor (pull-up)
- 330 Ω LED resistor
- BC547 transistor (for driving buzzer)
- 1N5819 Schottky diode
- 4.7KΩ resistor for I2C pull-ups
Peripherals & Headers
- Push buttons (reset, user)
- UART Header (4-pin)
- I²C Header (4-pin with pull-ups)
- Mini breadboard
- Male pin headers
- Perfboard (single-sided)
- Hook-up wire (22–24 AWG)
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