Messages

16

µTasker general / Re: uTasker Documentation

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:39:12 AM »

Mark,

What we did to provide both an online and downloadable version of our docs, is use HtmlHelp (.CHM file).
With a few scripts/preprocessing you can put the same HTML files either onto a website or compiled into a CHM.

This is essentially what Microsoft do with MSDN.

As you know, I am pretty unhappy with the state of the uTasker documentation, and would like to see you put a lot more effort into making it complete and available in one place, rather than launching into new features or processors... fun as those are.

So I'd suggest you look at converting all your PDFs, forum posts, and "code explorer" into a set of HTML files and images that can be combined as a single downloadable CHM and viewed online.

17

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / Re: Important note about LPC23xx and LPC24xxx Ethernet

« on: March 23, 2010, 11:41:44 PM »

Important note: in combination with some TCP bugs we are investigating, this can result in the socket transmit permanently stopping! It is NOT just a performance issue.

18

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / Re: USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK without FLASH_FILE_SYSTEM

« on: March 23, 2010, 11:32:06 AM »

Yes that's what I did.
But USE_PARAMETER_AREA is a better fit anyway. So don't worry about USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK.

Next hardware rev we are changing to LPC2368, not least to get away from these stupid 32kB Flash sectors at the top.

Having merged to v1.4.3 I see the USE_PARAMETER_AREA code, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet. Few other things in flight ...

19

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / Re: USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK without FLASH_FILE_SYSTEM

« on: March 18, 2010, 11:22:08 PM »

OK, this sounds like what I want but I don't have this code.

In the meantime, I hacked the fnWriteFlashBytes etc to work even with just USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK defined. Although the code all steps through OK and the IAP calls get a zero result, memory does not change after the write. Is there some kind of protection enabled?

20

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK without FLASH_FILE_SYSTEM

« on: March 18, 2010, 06:47:14 AM »

I don't want the Flash file system, but I do want to use the parameter block.

Defining USE_PARAMETER_BLOCK without FLASH_FILE_SYSTEM in Config.h, doesn't work because in lpc23xx.c
fnWriteBytesFlash does nothing if FLASH_FILE_SYSTEM or SPI_FILE_SYSTEM is not defined.

I also don't understand why the parameter system stores bytes to quadwords. Surely each time parameters are written we just erase the whole sector and write the parameters as a single block?

21

µTasker general / Re: "Use dhcp" setting should be in NETWORK_PARAMETERS?

« on: March 18, 2010, 05:32:49 AM »

Also related, what is the difference between the "temporary" parameter block and the "swap" block???
Surely the temp block is not used unless the swap block is being used?
So shouldn't a lot more of the code in the parameter block handling, be dependent on USE_PAR_SWAP_BLOCK?

22

µTasker general / "Use dhcp" setting should be in NETWORK_PARAMETERS?

« on: March 18, 2010, 04:53:31 AM »

Is there a reason why the "use DHCP" setting is in the ucServers part of the main parameters, instead of being a part of the network parameters?

23

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / Re: Should I be able to receive subnet broadcast UDP?

« on: March 18, 2010, 02:42:55 AM »

Thanks, appears to work (withOUT NETBIOS)
(Edited that is works without netbios, d'oh!)

24

NXP^TM LPC2XXX and LPC17XX / Re: LPC17XX Preliminary Information

« on: March 06, 2010, 04:25:31 AM »

Oh, I believe it's possible alright, you just have to spend a lot of time debugging and working around stuff.  Probably using Linux would help, because then everyone's efforts are shared, unlike Windows.

25

µTasker general / Re: How do I use the serial port (UART) support?

« on: March 06, 2010, 04:23:31 AM »

Using it now without drama. Much faster than my output over JTAG

26

µTasker general / Re: MCU Recommendations

« on: March 06, 2010, 04:21:43 AM »

I have to add a little vote AGAINST NXP, they don't seem very responsive and offer relatively little in the way of development tools, although feature wise they are OK and 3rd parties do support them.

27

µTasker general / Re: DHCP behaviour

« on: March 06, 2010, 02:09:06 AM »

DHCP_SUCCESSFUL - ... Note that before this event occurs no network operation will be possible since there is no IP address available.

That's what I expected, but it doesn't seem to be totally true. My code was opening a UDP and TCP socket anyway, both succeeded, and I was able to receive and transmit on the UDP  socket. Transmitted packets went out with an address of 0.0.0.0. I suppose this is because DHCP is really using UDP, and there is nothing to stop the application also using it.

DHCP_MISSING_SERVER - this means that all attempts to obtain IP settings have failed. This occurs after the specified exponential repetition timeout reaches the maximum value of 64s and is set back to 4s.

Is this by the spec? It doesn't make much sense to me to jump back to frequent attempts; it would seem more logical to keep trying at 64s intervals. But I haven't read the RFC.

the application will usually chose to stop the process (give up) if it becomes clear that there is no DHCP server available and network operation would otherwise be impossible

This is where you would drop into zeroconf/automatic private IP protocol

Note that the details of the process, including timer involved are in the document http://www.utasker.com/docs/uTasker/uTaskerDHCP.PDF

Yes, this was a good document but does not cover the events, hence my question.

28

µTasker general / Re: DHCP behaviour

« on: March 04, 2010, 02:42:55 AM »

Continuing this discussion:

What ARE we supposed to do after the various DHCP events?
Do we have to stop it, restart it, or will it continue by itself?
DHCP_COLLISION suggests it will retry by itself?
DHCP_MISSING_SERVER, since your example shows stop, presumably will continue by itself... but your comment above suggests we need to restart it.

29

µTasker general / Re: How do I use the serial port (UART) support?

« on: March 03, 2010, 10:20:15 PM »

Thanks Mark. I didn't notice that doc because it was in the preliminary section.
Explains everything pretty well. In fact it's one of the best and most practical discussions of real UART operation I have ever seen! Kudos again.

Only thing I didn't notice is whether it uses a task of it's own, or is it all interrupt driven?

The API seems fairly complicated, probably more so than writing to the UART directly which I am used to ... except of course for the buffering.

30

µTasker general / How do I use the serial port (UART) support?

« on: March 03, 2010, 05:28:06 AM »

Hello,

What do I need to do to use serial ports? (For output only at this stage).
I want to use UART0 on LPC2366.
I tried looking through code, docs and forums but there doesn't seem to be any general guide.