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• On the back-burner

  forthnutter • 09/25/2023 at 02:28 • 0 comments

  Yep things have slowed down on this project, I have been experimenting on other projects, maybe will post other projects later on.

  Will get back to this project soon.

• No Change

  forthnutter • 08/14/2021 at 09:41 • 0 comments

  Yes still working on project, I have been concentrating mainly on he PC software. Will post more as time goes by.
  

• I have need for speed

  forthnutter • 03/29/2021 at 05:48 • 0 comments

  Have been working on getting some routines I had running in spin to work in Propeller Assembly, So far so good, I basic read a byte write a byte, read and write a byte with increment. The speed is still not to my satisfaction as of yet. Might try to do 16 bit and 32 bit read and writes that will get some things moving.

• Factorise or Factorize

  forthnutter • 10/08/2020 at 15:44 • 0 comments

  I have knocked up some code on my Linux Mint machine to communicate with the my WICE interface. So far all look good.

  But sorry folks, I did not use C code not even Assembly.

  I did it in factor, I have been using this language for 5 years now, I like its forthy-ness, interactive interface and the library of functions.

  
  First I need open serial, this took some time work, how to do this on linux environment. I use library "io.serial" use "termios" and "streams" libraries. I had some issue on read operation, transmission was the easiest, only thing to remember is use the "flush" function to send the data out after "write" function.

  : wice-start ( -- )
    "/dev/ttyUSB0" 115200 <serial-port>
    [
      break
      wice-ack drop
      wice-status drop
      wice-reset drop
      wice-read-memory drop
      wice-read-minc drop
      wice-read-saddress drop
      wice-close drop
      0 wice-open drop
      wice-reset drop
      0 wice-write-memory drop
      wice-reset drop
      0x55 wice-write-minc drop
  
      wice-read-u30 drop
      wice-read-u4 drop
      wice-read-u5 drop
      wice-read-u6 drop
  
      wice-reset drop
      16 wice-dump drop
  
    ] with-serial-port-fix ;

  wice-start basically sets up a serial port tuple. The with-serial-port-fix opens the serial port into a stream namespace and then executes all function in the quotation [ ] .
  

  : with-serial-port-fix ( serial-port quot -- )
      break
      [ open-serial ] dip
      [ [ serial-modify ] keep ] dip
    [ [ stream>> 10 seconds over set-timeout  drop ] keep ] dip
  !    [ [ stream>> dup in>> buffer>> 1 >>size drop drop ] keep ] dip
  !    [ [ dup serial-fd F_SETFL 0 fcntl drop drop ] keep ] dip
      [ stream>> ] dip
      with-stream ; inline

  So in the quotation I run some function like wice-ack. Which sends out $00 on the serial port and read 1 byte back, does a test to see if it is zero.
  

  ! acknowlge the device
  : wice-ack ( -- ? )
    0 1byte-array write flush
    1 read-partial ?first 0 = ;

  I test each command  and then I do a memory read function of 16 bytes x 16 lines.
  

  ! read memory addressed by address counter and increment
  : wice-read-minc ( -- d )
    4 1byte-array write flush
    1 read-partial ;
  
  ! dump one inline
  : wice-read-marray ( n -- array )
    <byte-array>
    [
      drop
      wice-read-minc first
    ] map ;
  
  : wice-dump ( n -- array )
    f <array>
    [
      drop
      16 wice-read-marray
    ] map ;
  

  The result in an array of 16 byte arrays read from the WICE all values are in decimal, next I will do print that out as hex dump. Then I will try to do write array to memory.
  

  So far factor has made testing very easy.
  

• The big loop

  forthnutter • 10/06/2020 at 13:30 • 0 comments

  Built a big loop that looks for the first data on serial port. This is the command byte, each command is put through case statement to run a function. Some commands will wait for 1 to 4 bytes for parameters. All commands must return something, this could  be 1 to 4 bytes of data this may change if future.

  List of current commands 
  

  Name	Command code	Parameter	Return Value	Description
  NOP	$00	None	1 byte	Awake Command will always return $00 manly here to see we get some kind of response.
  STATUS	$01	None	1 byte	Get status so far we $01 port A is open and $02 port B open for reading and writing.
  RESET	$02	None	4 bytes	Reset the Address Counter. This should always return four $00 bytes 32 bits
  READ	$03	None	1 byte	Reads the data in memory at the address of counter
  READINC	$04	None	1 byte	Reads the data in memory at the address of counter then increment address counter.
  ADDRESS	$05	None	4 bytes	Get the current address from the counter shadow 32 bits
  OPEN	$06	1 byte	1 byte	$01 Open port A for reading and writing, $02 open port B for reading writing. Returns the status e.g. command $01
  CLOSE	$07	None	1 byte	Closes access to all port and goes into ROM Emulation mode.
  WRITE	$08	1 byte	1 byte	Write to memory addressed by counter, a read of memory is performed after write and read data is returned.
  WRITEINC	$09	1 byte	1 byte	Write to memory addressed by counter, read of memory after write is returned and address counter is incremented.
  READU30	$0A	None	1 byte	Get the shadow value of U30 latch output
  READU4	$0B	None	1 byte	Get the shadow value of U4 latch output
  READU5	$0C	None	1 byte	Get the shadow value of U5 latch output
  READU6	$0D	None	1 byte	Get the shadow value of U6 latch output
  WRITEU30	$0E	1 byte	1 byte	Write a value to U30 shadow latch and return the new shadow value
  WRITEU4	$0F	1 byte	1 byte	Write a value to U4 shadow latch and return the new shadow value.
  WRITEU5	$10	1 byte	1 byte	Write a value to U5 shadow latch and return the new shadow value
  WRITEU6	$11	1 byte	1 byte	Write a value to U6 shadow latch and return the new shadow value

• Firmware gone back to spin code

  forthnutter • 09/28/2020 at 13:28 • 0 comments

  I was working way with c code "simple IDE" for the propeller and notice the memory space was getting smaller and smaller until I ran out, I must of had optimise setting wrong. I did spend sometime trying work out what when wrong.

  I when back to my original spin code. I will get back the c code another time.

  I have build basically a spin driver to handle all parallel hardware signals, created "wice" driver handle control of the parallel driver.

  The wice driver handles the writing to latches and the reading and writing of wice memory and maintains a shadow memory of all the latches and the address counter.

  So far the main code is only utilising one processor and no assembly. Another processor is running serial communication.

  Will look at putting parallel driver into a separate processor to get some extra speed. 
  

• Firmware Firmware

  forthnutter • 01/01/2020 at 08:39 • 0 comments

  Have been working on the firm for the Propeller, I started out using spin code for basic testing of I/O all looks good.

  Decided to build code in C using Simple IDE.

  So far I am able to write to WICE-4M memory and Read it back ok.

  More work required to transfer data from PC to Propeller and WICE-4M.

• The New PCB

  forthnutter • 10/24/2019 at 15:11 • 1 comment

  This is the new Parallel PCB all the level shifters have been changed for better drive of TTL IC for WICE-4M. So far all looks good no issue with talking to WICE-4M. Now time to write code to start communication. 

• The Parallel Redesign

  forthnutter • 10/08/2019 at 12:47 • 0 comments

  The Parallel port has now been redesign, getting made right now.

  Used level shifters with a extra output current.

  • Data line I used SN74LVC4245
  • The signal lines use 74LVC2T45 and 74LVC1T45

  This should work a bit better than last buld

• That did not work very well

  forthnutter • 09/27/2019 at 22:56 • 1 comment

  I did not do much research on the TXB0108 series of level shifters, the output pins do not have enough drive to switch a Parallel port with pull up resistors with 1K on the WICE, My bad, a redesign is on the way.

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