The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

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altitude
 
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The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

So it looks like the new CPU project has stalled somewhat so here is something I am willing to do get things back on track. Textile's ATmega2561 board is done, I have 2. What it needs is the boot loader ported to that chip so here is what I offer:

1st person to do the coding work for the chip will get themselves a fully stuffed CPU upgrade board from me, for free, shipped where ever. What is needed are the fuse settings, bootloader binary, and a working app (if it needs tweaks). I will be doing the testing since I only have 2 boards, kinda sux

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

if no one else takes in a few days
ill do it
but i have a long list of other things im working on

what level of working app are you looking for
a basic port of the current x0x firmware

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altitude
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

guest wrote:if no one else takes in a few days
ill do it
but i have a long list of other things im working on

what level of working app are you looking for
a basic port of the current x0x firmware
Honestly, No clue. Not really qualified to answer that :P

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

i only ask about the working app
as you have that as one of your requirements
and im not sure what that means exactly either

whats your interest in the new cpu
are you going to program a new os

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altitude
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

Maybe i am using the wrong term. Afaik, what is needed for the new chip is the fuse settings and ported bootloader. I dont know if the firmware needs changes (what i called working app). I dont have any plans for this but there are people who do and since i have a spare board, i figured this may be a good way to make some progress toward a functional board

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

do you have any interest
in learning how to change fuse settings
and load the bootloader and such
its pretty easy
and i could help walk you through it
all you need is a 20$ programmer

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altitude
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

That part I am fine on, I work with blank avrs all the time and am very comfortable with avrdude. Hell, I even been know to compile and app once in a while. How to program fuses and code I have down pretty well, what that code means and how to write it is another matter

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

all the fuses and hex for the bootloader
shouldnt change at all
so you can just use the regular ones
i could do a quick port of the old code
and then you could load that on as well
and see if it all works

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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

on second thought
although the fuses are probably the same
the actual hex string might be different
because its a different part
and might have extra fuses the other doesnt

do you load code from command line
or do you use avrstudio
avrstudio has the nice checkboxes
for setting the fuses and whatnot

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altitude
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

I just do everything from the command line. The string I use for the fuses is:

avrdude -c usbtiny -p atmega162 -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U hfuse:w:0xD4:m -U efuse:w:0xF9:m

Sokken said he looked at it in another thread and "there are lots of defines and constants that need to be changed and the fuses also needs to be set correctly to get the bootloader to work as intended". But like I said, how to do it i get, what the code actually does, not so much. I take direction very well though :)

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antto
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by antto »

i really don't have much of clues about this
i'm only guessing that the stock firmware *might* need to be altered for it to work on the new CPU
you know, in the firmware there are #define's about pins and stuff, i guess the pins are different here (or maybe textile fixed that with the board? i really don't understand much of that aspect)

from my point of view (as a firmware dev.. erm.. modder) the best thing i expect from this is:
1) to have a bootloader which works just like the one now (at least)
2) to have the stock firmware v1.05 working on the new chip (even if that requires some of the firmware code to be changed) .. in order to have a good starting point for new OSes again

is that doable?
if anyone thinks i can help somehow - tell me, because right now i don't really see how :oops:

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antto
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by antto »

a side note:
i'm getting really annoyed by how c0ntr0l works (erm, doesn't always work)
so i tryied to make my own "app" .. it ain't finished yet
i was able to extract the patterns 100% successifully
but i am thinking that the way the app communicates with the x0x firmware could be changed a bit
if this new CPU mod requires the stock firmware v1.05 to be "modified" in order to work - then it's the perfect time for a new "app" and a new set of app->x0x commands

i'm thinking about a simplified way to query the amount of EEPROM memory the x0x has, and then a simple way of extracting/importing chunks of memory by the app
removing the unnused #define's from the MSGs (check the firmware, it's full of commands which are never implemented)

my app is a win32 console app
i guess it can be "ported" to any other OS, there is only one small thing - the "COM Port" part of the code, i'll need to cooperate with some other devs with other OSes to fix that
otherwise i use standart C++ stuff which have to work out of the box on any OS (iostream fstream ...)
and eventually, i'd like my app to also be able to upload the firmware too (then, there will be no need to use c0ntr0l ever again)
from my observation, i know that there are lots of MAC users, so if there is any MAC dev around who can help with this - PM me, we can cooperate

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

i found a version of the bootloader
although i dont know if its the most recent one
its listed as v1.2 6.27.2005
it is written in assembly
so i can very easily mod it for the new micro
ill post it up when done

guest
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by guest »

i also want to verify
it is written for atmega2561
is there a schematic for the daughter board

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altitude
 
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Re: The 2011 New MCU Bounty, coders please read

Post by altitude »

I have it. Pm your email and ill send it when i get home

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