Hi Aaron
1) The tutorial is specifically for working through the basics of the project in the simulator and on a standard board and details about customising it to other hardware is more suitable in other documents.
- your are right that there is no specific document for configuring to different hardware. For the moment I suggest using the other thread
http://www.utasker.com/forum/index.php?topic=783.msg3466#msg3466 be used as a basis for a reference building up such content.
- there are several documents dedicated to specific topics (
http://www.utasker.com/docs/uTasker/uTaskerHWTimers.PDF should give some details about timers, for example - note also that some details are quite HW specific and therefore there are usually appendixes giving examples on different targets)
- when something is missing (which it will always be) ask in the forum and you will always get a fast answer. Documents are also often created as direct requests for particular information - if no one asks for a particular document it probably won't be written since it does represent quite a large work effort and new developments take priority when there is no indication that effort invested elsewhere will be of interest.
- the demo project usually includes a particular module illustrating certain peripherals - these also work in the simulator - more a 'learning-by-doing' approach... eg.
- the file
Port_Interrupts.h contains port interrupt demonstrations which can be activated or deactivated by the defines at the start of the file. In this case
IRQ_TEST to enable or disable.
- the file
ADC_Timers.h contains ADC and timer tests (they are together because timers are often used as ADC triggers), whereby there are a number of tests - all configured by defines at the start of the file. Note that the basic support for the peripherals can usually be enabled and disabled in the file
app_hw_xxxx.h (
app_hw_lpc23xx.h in your case) -
SUPPORT_ADC, for example, specifically enables all ADC support in the project.
2) Unfortunately I can't change anything in the forum since this is from
Simple Machines. However I also found that this property of the search is not optimal. There is an advance search guide at
http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=58 which shows how to work with quotes to match phrases, etc. but it doesn't look as though they have a search for complete words only.
I also posted a comment about this there - they also have a forum where such themes can be handled. The forum is updated regularly with new SW from
Simple Machines so this may improve with time.
3) Yes, this is something which is often said. It is a difficult subject because on the one hand some people may be a bit overwhelmed by it but others disappointed when it is simplified. On top of this, a very large amount of users do use the project as base for their own developments (there are in fact quite a number of products containing most of the standard application as platform for additional functionality). Also I have had feedback from some users who have started with a stripped down version and ended up building most of the removed functionality back in because it is usually needed anyway...
On a side note, the complete project runs on at least 7 processor families (fully compatible - it needs no adjusting apart from the correct processor define and the corresponding compiler) and one central project simplifies the management of all packages considerably. This is the main reason that it is solved that way - other solutions would vastly increase the overhead. This may not be of much concern for users of a single package but is an important overall properly.However there is no problem with taking the demo project and accepting what it does (either stripped down by removing defines in
config.h or not) and adding your own task. Simply work in your own task - the rest will generally not disturb it - to do your own work until you understand what you want to keep and what not. There is also a document with details about this here:
http://www.utasker.com/docs/uTasker/uTaskerV1.3_user_guide.PDF Finally, most packages now contain two applications. The demo application which tries to demonstrate most of the features and also contains many sub-demos which can be activated to show peripheral support (also for use as base for real work), and the
serial loader project. The serial loader project is in fact also a good starting point for people who would like to start with something a bit smaller and simpler. It is a standalone project consisting or the watchdog task flashing an LED and a simple application task receiving input from a UART, which can of course be instead. By removing the application task you have a project just running the watchdog task, flashing an LED, which is about as simple as it gets... Generally I would suggest that this be used as alternative starting point, which should cover all tastes.
However there is a small problem in your case particular since you are using the LPC23XX project. This is just about the only project that is not supplied with the serial loader project due to the fact that the chips have an in-build serial loader....therefore it doesn't represent the solution that would otherwise have been ready. There is a new release planned for the 3rd. Jan 2010 including utFAT (SD-card) - see
http://www.utasker.com/forum/index.php?topic=776.0 and I will see whether the serial loader can be added to the LPC2XXX package simple due to the fact that it can be used as simple project, rather than the fact than anyone would probably use it for boot loading (but maybe I'm wrong...;-)
Regards
Mark
