There are two PIC microcontrollers on the V6Z80P, one is used for configuration of the FPGA and the other is used as a simple parallel-to-serial converter for the joystick ports.

Unfortunately, the PICs cannot be updated in situ - they must be removed from their sockets and reprogrammed with a PC hardware interace capable of burning PIC16F627A chips (or PIC16F628A depending on the part used) - these are common parts and many cheap burners on ebay will work.

The best software to use is WinPIC800 which is free. Please check to see if your chosen burning hardware is compatible (WinPIC800 is very configurable so should be adaptable.)

To update, it is merely a case of erasing the chip, loading the new image .hex file, reburning and verifying.

Firmware Update Files

The .hex files can be found in the PIC Microcontroller folder from Development_Files/

(The joystick PIC (the topmost horizontal chip) has not been updated so far, but the config PIC has had some improvements since the initial release (it can now report the Active Slot, firmware version etc). The tool EEPROM.EXE will report the PIC firmware version (if the current firmware is new enough).