Advice needed about how to get FreeRTOS running on Artemis

SPARK-X
1

I am embarking on a proof of concept project to use the Artemis module in a project that needs more ‘features’ than Arduino can provide. I need a moderately real operating system, so when I saw the combination of Ambiq and FreeRTOS, I dropped the other explorations (ESP32, etc.) and decided to dive into this world. I’m a software person who can understand everything in the Arm Cortex M4 docs starting with the Cortex-M4 Devices Generic User Guide and then moving on to the Cortex-M4 Technical Reference Manual and the Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard. I bought a Segger J-Link, the Sparkfun Edge board and the BlackBoard Artemis ATP. I’m a Mac user. I’ve gotten the GCC compiler, the AmbiqSuite-Rel2.2.0 and Python3 installed. I’ve not yet downloaded FreeRTOS/Ambiq code but I will start climbing that mountain that after I get a non-Arduino Blinky running using GCC from the command line and the J-Link tools. Any suggestions for how to accomplish that baby step would be appreciated.

I have several deeper questions right now, and I expect I’ll have several more in the future. I wonder where I might be able to get some answers to those questions. I notice that the Ambiq forum has very little activity - I doubt it would be useful. Is there an ARM forum or a FreeRTOS forum that might be useful? Or any place else?

FWIW here’s my first question - thank you liquid.soulder for your post in the parent forum here that described the ASB and the SVL. Unfortunately, they are for Arduino serial bootloading, so they aren’t useful for me. My question is this - does the ASB need to exist in the Apollo3 at all? I understand it comes pre-installed - I assume that’s what blinks the blue LED on the Sparkfun Edge board when I put the coin cell into the battery holder. Where can I find out the info about how and where (in memory) the FreeRTOS/Ambiq blob is to be loaded and how, if at all, it interacts with the ASB or any other ARM Cortex boot loaders?

Any information will be appreciated. Thanks for reading my post.

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Here is the FreeRTOS website (it conatains technical information as well as an archive of questions/answers) http://www.freertos.org

You’ve actually already downloaded FreeRTOS/Ambiq code in the AmbiqSuite SDK 2.0.0 (Just look for the FreeRTOS examples for the Apollo3 Evaluation Board (EVB))

Generally no, there is no requirement to have the ASB configured in the Apollo3, however I do not think it is possible to use that space for user code anyway. It is an Ambiq feature not a SparkFun feature (and it also handles OTA updates). The Blink code is just a user program that we program on the uC as part of QC. (This means you can possibly use your JLink to upload your application without ever using the ASB or the SVL)

There is no independent “FreeRTOS blob” – instead FreeRTOS is written in source code that you compile along with your application and the whole thing gets loaded as your binary.