Dear all,

  have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash using MSP430? I
would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from
IBM-compactable pc.

  thnx for any suggestion and help

Sunny

On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 08:45 +0000, sunnylh_chu wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
>   have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash using MSP430? I
> would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from
> IBM-compactable pc.
> 
>   thnx for any suggestion and help
> 
> Sunny

Hi Sunny-

There are a few different commercial FAT libraries out there for MSP430.
It's not a small task! You're going to need a controller with a lot of
SRAM, which limits you to a few of the high-end family members.

There was a good article in the March 2005 issue of Circuit Cellar
magazine on building a Portable FAT Library for MCU applications. They
used the MSP430 as the example processor, with the difference being that
they used a SPI-based SD/MMC card for storage. Since the FAT portions of
the library and the physical media access portions are separate, it
should be reasonable to "port" it to CompactFlash.

The article is available for US$2 from CircuitCellar.

Dave

PS - I haven't actually implemented any of this myself, just done some
research on it for a future project.

Hi - HCC-Embedded provide EFFS-THIN which allows you to connect a PC
compatible MMC/SD card in as little as 700 bytes of MSP430 SRAM - including
all file system and stack. 
Connecting a CF card is not possible because you have no 8/16 bit data bus
on hte MSP430 - therefore MMC/SD card is the only practical option. But this
can still give you huge storage for <10K ROM and <<1K RAM. 
 
Regards
Dave

  _____  

From: msp430@msp4... [mailto:msp430@msp4...] On Behalf Of
David D. Rea
Sent: 2005. jius 16. 17:52
To: msp430@msp4...
Subject: Re: [msp430] writing data to compact flash


On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 08:45 +0000, sunnylh_chu
wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
>   have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash using MSP430? I
> would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from
> IBM-compactable pc.
> 
>   thnx for any suggestion and help
> 
> Sunny

Hi Sunny-

There are a few different commercial FAT libraries out there for MSP430.
It's not a small task! You're going to need a controller with a lot of
SRAM, which limits you to a few of the high-end family members.

There was a good article in the March 2005 issue of Circuit Cellar
magazine on building a Portable FAT Library for MCU applications. They
used the MSP430 as the example processor, with the difference being that
they used a SPI-based SD/MMC card for storage. Since the FAT portions of
the library and the physical media access portions are separate, it
should be reasonable to "port" it to CompactFlash.

The article is available for US$2 from CircuitCellar.

Dave

PS - I haven't actually implemented any of this myself, just done some
research on it for a future project.



.





  _____  

> . 

Dave, 

> Hi - HCC-Embedded provide EFFS-THIN which allows
you to 
> connect a PC compatible MMC/SD card in as little as 700 bytes 
> of MSP430 SRAM - including all file system and stack. 
> Connecting a CF card is not possible because you have no 8/16 
> bit data bus on hte MSP430 

Bzzzt.  Wrong.

http://www.e-lab.de/components/cf_and_co_en.htm

There's a CF to I2C interface.  I already have this CF device working on
MSP430 with a FAT12/FAT16 filesystem.  For fun.  :-)

Rgds,

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd  http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and (soon) MAXQ processors

Hi Paul - I have not seen this - it is interesting - but practically what
is
the advantage? I can only see a h/w overhead to such a solution. Performance
must be limited by the I2C similar to SPI so I would think this is just
extra cost.

 

Anyway EFFS-THIN is the minimum RAM solution if you use this also.

 

Regards

Dave

 

  _____  

From: msp430@msp4... [mailto:msp430@msp4...] On Behalf Of
Paul Curtis
Sent: 16 June 2005 18:46
To: msp430@msp4...
Subject: RE: [msp430] writing data to compact flash

 

Dave, 

> Hi - HCC-Embedded provide EFFS-THIN which allows
you to 
> connect a PC compatible MMC/SD card in as little as 700 bytes 
> of MSP430 SRAM - including all file system and stack. 
> Connecting a CF card is not possible because you have no 8/16 
> bit data bus on hte MSP430 

Bzzzt.  Wrong.

http://www.e-lab.de/components/cf_and_co_en.htm

There's a CF to I2C interface.  I already have this CF device working on
MSP430 with a FAT12/FAT16 filesystem.  For fun.  :-)

Rgds,

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd  http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and (soon) MAXQ processors


.






  _____  

>  Terms of Service. 

Hi Sunny,

2005/6/15, sunnylh_chu <sunnylh_chu@sunn...>:
> 
>   have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash using MSP430? I
> would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from
> IBM-compactable pc.
> 
>   thnx for any suggestion and help

Michael De Nil from the AVR-Chat list has pointed this: 	

You can take a look at Efsl (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/efsl),
a FAT12/16/32 library for AVR (and other embedded devices) that has a
hardware layer for accessing SD-cards.

You will need a CF hardware layer (many more pins) though.

Good luck,

-- 
Francisco

Dave, 

> Hi Paul - I have not seen this - it is interesting
- but 
> practically what is the advantage?

It's off-the-shelf, it's no more than a curio for me.

> I can only see a h/w 
> overhead to such a solution. Performance must be limited by 
> the I2C similar to SPI so I would think this is just extra cost.

It is slow.  But then, if you need to do it, there's a solution.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd  http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and (soon) MAXQ processors

Hi,

> Hi Sunny,
> 
> 2005/6/15, sunnylh_chu <sunnylh_chu@sunn...>:
> > 
> >   have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash 
> using MSP430? I 
> > would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from 
> > IBM-compactable pc.
> > 
> >   thnx for any suggestion and help
> 
> Michael De Nil from the AVR-Chat list has pointed this: 	
> 
> You can take a look at Efsl 
> (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/efsl),
> a FAT12/16/32 library for AVR (and other embedded devices) 
> that has a hardware layer for accessing SD-cards.
> 
> You will need a CF hardware layer (many more pins) though.

...plus quite a lot of RAM and FLASH because, well, it's very big.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd  http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and (soon) MAXQ processors

Hi,

i'm using a file which uses the whole space and has a marker at the begin,
because
MS-Win 9X can't do (simple) low-level access to a disk/card and many people
do use MS-Win 9X.
The MSP reads/writes after that marker without file system actions.
That's embedded SFS (Simple File System, proprietary format) and
works with nearly every unencrypted/uncompressed file system and
does not care e. g. about the MBR and super-floppy format.

I'm sure that the file system driver for a microcontroller can not handle
all allowed configurations for a FAT file systems and e. g. extended 
partitions or super-floppy format (which i prefer because MS-Win can
only use the first partition or the super-floppy).

Regards,

Rolf


msp430@msp4... schrieb am 16.06.05 19:08:01:
> 
> Hi Sunny,
> 
> 2005/6/15, sunnylh_chu <sunnylh_chu@sunn...>:
> > 
> >   have you ever tried to writing data to compact flash using MSP430? I
> > would like to write in FAT16/32 format so that I can read from
> > IBM-compactable pc.
> > 
> >   thnx for any suggestion and help
> 
> Michael De Nil from the AVR-Chat list has pointed this: 	
> 
> You can take a look at Efsl (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/efsl),
> a FAT12/16/32 library for AVR (and other embedded devices) that has a
> hardware layer for accessing SD-cards.
> 
> You will need a CF hardware layer (many more pins) though.
> 
> Good luck,
> 
> -- 
> Francisco
> 
> 
> .
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
>