Trouble to start with ARM LPC2148. Dev Environement issu

Hello all,

I started recently to learn MCU world and I have dealed with 8-bits
PIC16F684 & HCS08 MCUs and it was exiting & very helpful experience.
Now I want to move on to 16/32 bits witch ARM. I bought a wonderful Dev
board with Philips LCP2148, "Embedded Artists", but now I am VERY STUCK
witch DEV ENVironment: witch one to use to develop and program my
board?. With the board I got many dev tools that i am having trouble
making them work:
=B7 QuickStart Build Environment from Embedded Artists : kind of DOS
cmd prompt and complex to use.

=B7Rowley Associates CrossWorks for ARM. Doenst contain LPC2148
librarys

=B7 IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM. Have to get licence key thru
registration. this part of there website is down.

=B7 The Eclipse development environment including the CDT. This one
looks good but I have to build my one librarys for LPC2148, I guess.

This kind of MCU is pretty complex to work with compare to others MCU
that I've used and I dont want to start to build the headers files and
librarys....I want an environment like MPLAB or CodeWarrior where u
just write your C code and then target the MCU. I mean by writing the C
code : to use the ready-to-use port names like PORTA or PTFDD
ect...dont want to deal with stuffs like : "#define BCFG0  (*((volatile
unsigned long *) 0xFFE00000))".

I spent already 2 days looking for some thing that works for me, so
your help, guys, is highly appreciated.

Thomas.

I've heard that Rowley has 2148 code if you send them an email and ask
for it. It was too new to make it into their release. Rowley probably
has the best support for small companies - they really care and they
talk to anyone.

IAR EW is also great. It's worth the effort to register for free. We
love to complain about this software but I've found it to be full
featured and reliable. Yes, it has some quirks, but so does everything.
The company is a little larger than Rowley and you have more red tape
when dealing with support, but they really are ok in the end.

Eclipse is good for people who like control of their own destiny and
they don't mind a little extra work. Nobody will tell you it can't be
done, but nobody will do it for you. either. It's a mindset, almost.
This reminds me of the debate between C and Pascal in the early days.
Pascal said "I won't let you shoot yourself", and C said "would you
like to shoot yourself in the other foot, too?". With flexibility comes
responsiblity.

Eric

thomas.b36@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I started recently to learn MCU world and I have dealed with 8-bits
> PIC16F684 & HCS08 MCUs and it was exiting & very helpful experience.
> Now I want to move on to 16/32 bits witch ARM. I bought a wonderful Dev
> board with Philips LCP2148, "Embedded Artists", but now I am VERY STUCK
> witch DEV ENVironment: witch one to use to develop and program my
> board?. With the board I got many dev tools that i am having trouble
> making them work:
> =B7 QuickStart Build Environment from Embedded Artists : kind of DOS
> cmd prompt and complex to use.
>
> =B7Rowley Associates CrossWorks for ARM. Doenst contain LPC2148
> librarys
>
> =B7 IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM. Have to get licence key thru
> registration. this part of there website is down.
>
> =B7 The Eclipse development environment including the CDT. This one
> looks good but I have to build my one librarys for LPC2148, I guess.
>
> This kind of MCU is pretty complex to work with compare to others MCU
> that I've used and I dont want to start to build the headers files and
> librarys....I want an environment like MPLAB or CodeWarrior where u
> just write your C code and then target the MCU. I mean by writing the C
> code : to use the ready-to-use port names like PORTA or PTFDD
> ect...dont want to deal with stuffs like : "#define BCFG0  (*((volatile
> unsigned long *) 0xFFE00000))".
>
> I spent already 2 days looking for some thing that works for me, so
> your help, guys, is highly appreciated.

This came up on the LPC2000 Yahoo group recently - the 2148 is
sufficiently close to the 2138 for you to use the latter's headers
etc., perhaps with a few changes.

Leon

Hello Eric and Leon,

Thanks for the advices. Rowley sent me there LPC2148 library. There
support is good and fast. The problem now is that I dont have a JTAG
cable and apparently We can only use JTAG (Macgregore Wiggler, Segger J
link and USB CarossConnnet) . AM I wrong? Can one use COM1 or USB
instead for targeting the board?.
Currently I am using QuickStart Build Environment from Embedded Artists
that come with the board, I had to change some setting in the makes
file :
1-Change MCU to LPC2148
2-Change the paramettres for the Terminal : baudeRate ect....
3 In Config file, change the cristal frequency to 12 000
It works fine exept that the header file that they provide is kind of
very general : LPC21xx.h, so specific declarations for LPC2148 are
missing there. This is what I have to figure out and put it in this
header file. And its kind of cmd windows and you have to change evey
things manualy, not like the Rowley or IAR IDE.

Thank you guys again.

Thomas

Get a cheap wiggler clone from Olimex. They cost around $20 US. The US
distributer is Sparkfun. These are parallel port cables that hook up to
the JTAG port.

http://www.olimex.com/dev/  (click on Arm, then Arm-JTAG)
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=1_26

I advise you not to mess around with USB unless you need it for your
project. USB is cool, but its not trivial.

By the way, Embedded Artists makes some great stuff for a low price.
And you can register on their site and have access to more downloads
and tech support.

Eric

PS: if this is for a company requirement and you have a short deadline,
I'd probably look at the Freescale 9S12 devices, since they're a
logical step up from the '08 - they have about 10X faster performance
and excellent integration of peripheral support code and flash/RAM.
They are much easier to work with than Arm. Arm's have a high amount of
performance for a low price, but they're difficult to learn. I wish I
had a buck for every little "gotcha" I've seen, and I'm sure I haven't
seen them all yet. I still don't fully understand the false interrupt
issue. I'm hoping the new Cortex M3 devices will be less painful to
work with - I've heard this is true, but only Luminary Micro makes them
right now and I haven't had a chance to play with them.

Eric wrote:
> Get a cheap wiggler clone from Olimex. They cost around $20 US. The US
> distributer is Sparkfun. These are parallel port cables that hook up to
> the JTAG port.
> http://www.olimex.com/dev/  (click on Arm, then Arm-JTAG)
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=1_26

Yes its a resonable price exepte that its out of stock now :-).

> By the way, Embedded Artists makes some great stuff for a low price.
> And you can register on their site and have access to more downloads
> and tech support.

Yes they are.

> Eric

> PS: if this is for a company requirement and you have a short deadline,
> I'd probably look at the Freescale 9S12 devices, since they're a
> logical step up from the '08 - they have about 10X faster performance
> and excellent integration of peripheral support code and flash/RAM.
> They are much easier to work with than Arm. Arm's have a high amount of
> performance for a low price, but they're difficult to learn.

I argee with you ARM are difficult to learn and have a diffrent IDE's,
that rendres the task difficule (there is no Librarys/memory mapping
noramalisation compared to, for exemple, Freescale MCUs). I am doing it
for my self because ARM is mostly selled as a CORE and implemented a
lot in FPGA and ASIC. I am an FPGA designer myself so for me its kind
of a must to learn a thing.

Thanks for your advice and time.

thomas.b36@gmail.com wrote:
> Eric wrote:
> > Get a cheap wiggler clone from Olimex. They cost around $20 US. The US
> > distributer is Sparkfun. These are parallel port cables that hook up to
> > the JTAG port.
> > http://www.olimex.com/dev/  (click on Arm, then Arm-JTAG)
> > http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=1_26
>
> Yes its a resonable price exepte that its out of stock now :-).
>

I use a home-made one, details (including PCB artwork) are in the
LPC2000 Yahoo group Files section (jtag.zip).

Leon

Eric wrote:

> PS: if this is for a company requirement and you have a short deadline,
> I'd probably look at the Freescale 9S12 devices, since they're a
> logical step up from the '08 - they have about 10X faster performance
> and excellent integration of peripheral support code and flash/RAM.

Freescale also has amazingly good development hardware at low prices. 
The board they sell for university students (though anyone can buy it) 
includes an integrated BDM (the JTAG equivalent for Freescale). It 
includes a good development environment as well.