I’m pretty new in this so forgive me for writing something stupid here,
I’m in the process of selecting a board to set my first steps in the world of ARM programming and i want to shield myself from selecting a board that is interesting for 2 weeks and then lands in a box never to be looked at again.
The 2 boards i got interested by are the “Uberboard” and the “Olimex Prototyping Board for LPC2148”
The Uber one has the SD bootloader which the Olimex doesnt directly support (customer service told me that) but the Olimex has way more potential so to see.
The Olimex has my real attention but the main question i have is how do i program the chip as i can not use the bootloader thing.
The LPC chips have a serial bootloader you can use, with software like FlashMagic. See the data sheet. It’ll work with any board with a UART0 connection and a jumper for enabling serial booting. That probably includes the Olimex board.
Most people use a JTAG I/F for programming and debugging, they aren’t expensive. I use the CrossWorks CrossConnect with their development software. I’ve designed a parallel port JTAG, if you want to build your own.
I like the Embedded Artists LPC2148 module and prototyping board, I’m using them for developing a really large application for a client. Serial booting works with them, I tried it once.
Yes, that JTAG will work OK if you have a parallel port. The CrossConnect uses USB.
All you need for the serial bootloader is a serial port on your PC and a cable, plus the software I mentioned. I think I’ve had it working with a USB-serial adapter. It is even possible to debug your code via the serial port with gcc and gdb, but it’s rather slow. I’d get the JTAG.
I think i go for the Olimex board and start using the USB serial port as a starter. I saw on the Crossworks page that they have a nice usb2JTAG programmer so maybe in the future i’ll use that
For now i can start anyway experimenting.
Many thanks Leon and I also signed up for your group also.