Ok first off let me make it really clear that this is the first time I’ve ever worked with micro devices such as the lpc2378. I’ve done asp.net and vb.net code and even vb6 code but never worked with c/c++ code and certainly never with a microprocessor.
With that being said I’ve got a project I want to start on but before I can even do that I need to get my feet wet with a few demo projects so I can start to get a comfortable feeling and understanding on how this device is used and controlled via code.
I’ve got the demo code for the nokia 6610 lcd display that sparkfun sent me via email but it appears to be in IAR Embedded workbench format and I’m using Eclipse+OPENOCD to do my work in along with olimex usb jtag.
So if some kind soul out there wants to lend a hand to port over the project to eclipse or perhaps even has a already done lcd project that works with eclipse please drop a reply here.
What I want to try and do after this is all done is log some serial communications and have it displayed out onto the lcd screen so that I can see whats going on. Once I can verify this board will talk to the device connected at the other end of the serial line then I’ll start coding more things in for chatting back and forth between pc and olimex board.
echel0n:
Ok first off let me make it really clear that this is the first time I’ve ever worked with micro devices such as the lpc2378. I’ve done asp.net and vb.net code and even vb6 code but never worked with c/c++ code and certainly never with a microprocessor.
echel0n:
What I want to try and do after this is all done is log some serial communications and have it displayed out onto the lcd screen so that I can see whats going on. Once I can verify this board will talk to the device connected at the other end of the serial line then I’ll start coding more things in for chatting back and forth between pc and olimex board.
My experience has been that it is infinitely easier to do it the other way around. i.e. get serial communication working first and then work on your LCD screen. Also, with your vb background you should find Oberon-07 easier to adapt to than c/c++
Ok I found Armaide which is for ARM and uses the Oberon-07 language you speak of.
Now as I stated I have no experiance with microdevices so I’m not even sure were to begin with learning to get serial communications working properly.
I need to be able to receive commands from another device that’ll be connected to the olimex’s serial port and then process them and responde back to said device backthrough the serial port.
Any clues or hints to what I should be looking at ?
echel0n:
I need to be able to receive commands from another device that’ll be connected to the olimex’s serial port and then process them and responde back to said device backthrough the serial port.
Any clues or hints to what I should be looking at ?
Connect your board to a terminal emulator on a PC. I find Tera Term works well. Start off by running a couple of programs that just display output from your board on the emulator. The example programs supplied with Armaide (Info, ViewMemory, TestTraps and Extensions) all do that. By default the serial output is 38,400 baud.
Examine those programs and read the information related to the imported library modules in the supplied documentation to get up to speed.
If you need any additional help which is Armaide-specific (e.g. related to the language or libraries) then ask your questions on the Yahoo Armaide Tech group rather than here. You will find more developers with Oberon experience over there.
Does this software/language work with OPENOCD and Olimex’s USB Jtagger ?
I was really hoping I could stick with eclipse and gnu arm and just start learning c/c++ better by looking over working examples but got stuck when most the examples seem to be for diffrent IDE’s
echel0n:
Does this software/language work with OPENOCD and Olimex’s USB Jtagger ?
No.
echel0n:
I was really hoping I could stick with eclipse and gnu arm and just start learning c/c++ better by looking over working examples but got stuck when most the examples seem to be for different IDE’s
From my experience (30 years as professional software developer, 10 of those years using C) it is very easy to write erroneous programs in C. The fundamental design of the language means that compilers have difficulty trapping the sort of blunders that a newcomer is likely to make. Hence, you won’t know about the problems until runtime when it is much harder to identify and rectify them. In the worst case you won’t even find out about the problems until a customer on the other side of the world discovers them.
Combine that with the initial mistakes that you are bound to make writing software for a highly versatile (and, consequently complex) microcontroller like one of the LPC2000 family is a recipe for disaster. Half the time you won’t know whether you’ve misunderstood C or not read the LPC specs properly. Hence, you will end up spending something like 95% of your time up to your neck in a debugger and only 5% of your time writing productive code.
As you already are an experienced programmer, if you want to use C/C++ then I recommend that you start off by learning it in a familiar environment. e.g. by first writing simple programs on a desktop system. Once you are confident that you are capable of writing reliable working applications only then should you start learning how to use it to write embedded software. A few months should be sufficient to get you up to something approaching equivalent to your current VB capabilities.