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Hi, a blast from the past...
My iBook running 10.4.6 has no problems downloading the firmware from MacNQC
4.05b but when I try to download a program I always get "communications error"
and it fails. I've tried both the USB IR tower and the serial IR tower through
a USB/serial dongle, no joy. Does anyone know what could be wrong here? Is
there something that I've missed?
Thanks anyone who may still lurk here...
DLC
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The Bibo Patch Rollup Collection posted to SourceForge at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
has been updated.
This update adds a handful of patch files--20 through 24.
20: Nice group of Linux error/warning fixes from Carl and posted to
SourceForge at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2793018&group_id=58151&atid=486699
Thanks, Carl!
21: This is a group of bibo paches by Dr. Hoenicke, of which the major
changes relate to makefile, assembly branching, and util man page updates
(plus a documentation typo on my part--sorry! :-). Thank you!
The above patches were incorporated into the rollup to minimize merge
differences with subsequent patches.
22: This patch changes kexeci's argv argument from type char** to type
void** and is based on some (now old) feedback from the Lego.NET folks (
http://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/research/lego.NET/ ). Some delegate-type
functions aren't (yet) implemented for Lego.NET, but the capability should
be there for wait_event-type delegates. For the case of kexeci, the
Lego.NET delegate's argv would not be of type char**. From what I can tell
by reviewing the code, the type of argv does not matter to the BrickOS/Bibo
kernel, so it should be safe for a Lego.NET delegate to pass a non-char-type
argv. If anyone has any deeper insight, I would welcome the feedback.
23: Back to work on LNP. Implemented some code and ideas from
http://lnphost.sf.net/ , which was designed as a replacement for lnpd.
While there are a few drawbacks due to implementation differences (no
tty_type_t support, no sharing/reuse of lnp and lnp-logical with the kernel,
a small documented problem that "in some rare cases lego packets might not
be detected correctly"), it does have some nice features, including handlers
for standard Lego messages and a nicer hexdump routine (shows both hex and
ASCII-printable characters. That hexdump routine has been incorporated,
replacing the existing one.
LNP was updated to include a handler for standard Lego messages (this is in
addition to existing functionality), and the ability to send "Lego remote
codes" was added. The lnpmsg program also received several updates.
Support was added for both displaying and sending both standard firmware
messages and Lego remote codes. The LNP message output format was changed
to use the updated hexdump routine (instead of just a text string), which
should make it easier to monitor non-text LNP messages.
24: Improved the keepalive capabilities to remove some of the keepalive
burden from programs that might use rcx_comm. Unfortunately, I'm not setup
right now to test either a serial IR tower or an NCD port, but I did try to
setup a dummy NCD-like tty for testing. Keepalive works of a signal and
alarm, with code in place to prevent a keepalive byte from being sent while
either writing (rcx_nbwrite) or actively reading (rcx_nbread). I would be
interested in feedback from anyone using a device that needs a keepalive.
Thank you again to those who have responded or provided feedback. If you
ever catch a few more free moments, Carl, I would be interested in a Bibo
version of your edgecount patch. :-)
Thanks,
Matthew
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I've again updated the Bibo Patch Rollup Collection posted to SourceForge at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
This update adds two new patches--18 and 19.
18: For the host utilities, this patch attempts to standardize the command
line arguments and their processing. There is also some additional cleanup
in lnpmsg, plus the addressing of a gcc 4 warning that was brought to my
attention. The original lnpmsg (actually LegOShrink) supported logging to
file, sending from file, and filtering LNP addressing messages based on
destination host and/or port. To ease the process of standardizing the
common host utility code, some of those features were trimmed out; however,
some of the supporting functions remain in place, including SendFile() and
LogString in lnpmsg_comm.c
19: The assembly file dccasm.S with functions necessary for DCC operation
was moved from libs/dcc to alongside kernel/dcc.c. As has been the case
dcc.c, the code in dccasm.S now builds based on whether or not CONF_DCC has
been defined. The folder lib/dcc may be deleted.
Thank you,
Matthew
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I have again updated the Bibo Patch Rollup Collection posted to SourceForge
at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
A big change this time is the consolidation of the code bases of util/firmdl
and util/dll-src. Working with all the similar-but-different code was
getting a bit cumbersome, so I finally decided to try to clean it up. This
should make enhancing or creating other host utilities much easier.
Point by point, updates since the last lugnet posting are as follows:
* Kudos to Joe for identifying the source of the IR tower problem in Linux,
as he tracked it down to the O_NDELAY flag. For now, this flag has been
removed.
* Made NCD tty types a runtime option instead of a compile-time #define.
* Merged patches for BrickOS with Bibo, including LDCC, lnp_printf, and
lnpmsg (formerly LegOShrink)
* Reworked firmdl3, dll, and lnpmsg under utils as well as lnp and
lnp-logic in the kernel to facilitate better code reuse, remove essentially
duplicate code, and establish a set of common functions for rcx_comm and
LNP. Merged the resulting code into util/host, deprecating util/firmld,
util/dll-src, and util/fontdesign.c.
* Util dll--made fast mode a runtime option instead of a compile-time
#define.
* Added ability to send LNP messages directly from the lnpmsg command line.
* Added ir-server from Jochen Hoenike's BrickEmu package and used the code
reworked from above to add support for tty downlinking (e.g. serial, USB,
TCP) or TCP uplinking.
Notes and issues:
* If lnp_integrity_byte() is processing firmware download communication on
the host (e.g. if lnpmsg is listening on an ir-server repeating the firmware
download), a segmentation fault will eventually result.
* Command-line argument format and command-line argument processing - the
various programs use different methods of processing command-line arguments,
resulting in similar argument being handled differently by different
programs. Ideally, this would be addressed in another round of code
cleanup.
* I am not currently setup to test either serial IR towers or NCD serial
connections, so any reports for these devices would be welcome.
Using the updated ir-server, I have actually been able to send firmdl3 to
ir-server (instance A) to ir-server (instance B) to USB IR tower to physical
RCX. I then used
dll to send helloworld_lnp.lx up the same route. Finally with one instance
of lnpmsg listening on ir-server (A) and another instance of lnpmsg
listening on ir-server (B), I ran the helloworld_lnp program on the physical
RCX. I did have to increase RCX_TIMEOUT to 500, but everything otherwise
works as expected.
I also tried the same sequence using BrickEmu (with a ROM image from my RCX)
instead of the USB IR tower. The only anomaly was that "unlock firmware"
fails, but everything else seems to work fine.
Thanks,
Matthew
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Hey folks
I've created a very basic site here: http://www.rcxzone.com/
When I say very basic I mean VERY basic.. it's just an empty instance
of mediawiki, but I'll look to adding content when I get a chance.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Tom
On 20/04/2009, at 6:29 PM, Joe Bradley wrote:
> > Revised version [BrickOS patches] at
> > http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?
> > func=detail&aid=2722649&group_id=58151&atid=486699
>
> > Now for Bibo.... I have merged these patch rollup collections
> > with Bibo
> > (where appropriate) and have posted the resulting diff files to
> > http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?
> > func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
>
> I have found two problems with the patches. I narrowed down the
> problems to
> specific patches from the Bibo set. However the symptoms are
> identical under
> BrickOS so I assume they would be linked to the same patches there.
>
> Patch 10: Under Ubuntu with the usb tower, this causes firmdl3 to
> exit with
> error "read: resource temporarily available". However the light
> does light up on
> the tower for a small moment.
>
> Patch 11: This seems to do something funny with the motors. Power
> does not seem
> to be supplied to the motors. when running the motor, the arrows
> appear on the
> lcd however there is no power being outputted.
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After all the amazing post across lugnet the past few weeks, it feels
a bit lame putting this one up:
http://rubyredbricks.com/2009/4/27/simple-traffic-light
I guess once it's running up on an RCX it'll be a bit more interesting.
On the topic of RCX - and the whole old-school Mindstorms
preservation idea - I haven't forgotten about it. I've registered a
domain and will aim to get a wiki up and running over the weekend.
Cheers
Tom
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I have updated the Bibo Patch Rollup Collection posted to SourceForge at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
The primary changes are in Patch 11, which provides DCC support, and the key
change in that patch was the modification of some assembly code that
performed motor controller bitmasking.
Still known to be outstanding is an issue using firmdl3 on Linux when using
a USB IR tower.
Thanks,
Matthew
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Patch 10: This works for me under Cygwin with a USB tower, but some of the
files such as rcx_comm.c have a bit of platform-specific code.
Patch 11: I've noticed that the linker command file is a little different in
Bibo than it was in BrickOS. If _motor_controller is 0x00 in bibo.ld and
dm_mask is set to 0x00 in dmotor.c dm_init(), there is "regular" motor
output; if _motor_controller is the BrickOS value of 0x80, DCC motor output
functions as expected.
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> Revised version [BrickOS patches] at
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2722649&group_id=58151&atid=486699
> Now for Bibo.... I have merged these patch rollup collections with Bibo
> (where appropriate) and have posted the resulting diff files to
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2773502&group_id=58151&atid=486699
I have found two problems with the patches. I narrowed down the problems to
specific patches from the Bibo set. However the symptoms are identical under
BrickOS so I assume they would be linked to the same patches there.
Patch 10: Under Ubuntu with the usb tower, this causes firmdl3 to exit with
error "read: resource temporarily available". However the light does light up on
the tower for a small moment.
Patch 11: This seems to do something funny with the motors. Power does not seem
to be supplied to the motors. when running the motor, the arrows appear on the
lcd however there is no power being outputted.
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