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FabLab Academy 2012

Manchester Lab

David Forgham-Bailey

Week 9: embedded_programming

Weekly Assignment:

The task this week was to read the Data Sheet for the ATTINY 44a, then program the modified hello board which we made in week 7 using a number of programming languages.

Narrative:

I had a feeling that my original board was defective, and while attempting to resolder, the tracks began to lift from the backing board. So, I took the opportunity to redesign the board in Eagle, and mill a replacement with the Roland Modela. This time I fitted a new tip to the soldering iron and found stuffing the board much easier. The board worked first time.
I used the Arduino Program first, following the detailed tutorial to establish that the system was working. This was relatively straight forward. I ran the bootloader ahving set the board to ATTINY44 @20mhz and the programmer to USBtinyISP. Then I wrote a simple routine of my own to make the LED Fade in and out when powered up, and change to Blink when the button is pressed:

/*
button_led_blink_fade

Turns on and off a light emitting diode(LED) connected to digital
pin 7 (6tiny), LED blinks when pressing a pushbutton attached to pin 3 (10tiny).
fades in and out when button released

The circuit:
* LED attached from pin 7 to ground - attiny44 pin 6
* pushbutton attached to pin 3 from +5V -attiny44 pin 10
* 10K resistor attached to pin 3 from ground

created 2012
by dfb

*/

// constants won't change. They're used here to
// set pin numbers:
const int buttonPin = 3;     // the number of the pushbutton pin
const int ledPin = 7;      // the number of the LED pin

// variables will change:
int buttonState = 1;         // variable for reading the pushbutton status
int brightness = 0;    // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5;    // how many points to fade the LED by

void setup() {
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
}

void loop(){
// read the state of the pushbutton value:
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
// change the brightness for next time through the loop:
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;

// reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
    fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
}
// wait for 2 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(2);
// check if the pushbutton is pressed.
// if it is, the buttonState is HIGH:
if (buttonState == LOW) {





digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);   // set the LED on
delay(250);              // wait for a second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);    // set the LED off
delay(500);              // wait for a second
}

else {
    // turn LED off:
analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);
}

}

Next I used a Terminal on my Mac and used gavrasm and avrdude to compile the hex file and program the chip.

Assembly language program:

prog name (describe the process)
copyright info
Hardware info
Ports and Pins
Register Definitions
Macros
Interrupt Routines
Sub Routines
Main Program

commands:
gavrasm program_name.asm    - creates program_name.hex

avrdude -p t44 -c usbtiny -u flash:w:program_name.hex   - command line to program the chip

avrdude -p t44 -c usbtiny -u lfuse:w:0x7E:m    - to set the fuses.

Comments:
Software: - I also tried AVRStudio ( I dug out my old Windows laptop and installed AVRStudio)
Hardware:

    Materials:
    Machine Settings:
    Photos:

led on
Files:
Drawings:

External Links:

Course Notes:

von Neuman - software that can
RISC - Reduced Instruction Set - /speed and predictable timing/
CISC
microprocessor
desktop
FPGA (GATES)

microcontroller - many different types of memory - I/O - system on a chip

RISC Microcontrollers - (ATTINY44A) -
    register - used when doing instructions
    SRAM - saving/stores dynamic
    DRAM -
    EEPROM - stores when switched off
    FLASH - Non -volatile - programs
    fuse - for configuration - sets up processor

peripherals - word size - families -

ATMEL AVR - designed from ground up - RISC instruction set - DCC directly supports AVR - GOOD instuction set - WIDE FAMILY form cheao and small to big and complex -

DATA SHEET
packages - DIP / SOT / SOIC (small outline)
clocks - RC / ceramic / quartz (best resolution)
programmers
ISP / ICE (in-circuit emulation) / JTAG debugwire - realtime acess to processor sets up breakpoints etc / debugging in the system / bootloader - programme which loads programmes

AVR Libc
gcc - install these in Linux avr-libc/binutils/gcc-avr (c development environment)

host communication RS232 / Kermit minicom / FTDI cable (RS232 to USB)

languages - c / c with interupts / assembly /
IDE _Integrated Development Environment

AVRStudio - Eclipse - Arduino -(set of c libraries - IDE - lets you program and load - boot loader - standard set of boards)

david mellis - arduino
interpreters - Python / Basic / Forth / AVRSH

Eddies lecture -
registers - address in hex content in binary - *.asm (assembly language)