Booting the Prop from SD card - discussion and ideas

Cluso99

Many of you are aware of the ZiCog/CPM project and the TriBlade hardware. We now also have an emerging DracBlade and RamBlade.

Firstly, a big thankyou to all who have made this project possible... heater, lonesock, rokicki, oldbitcollector, mike green, bradc, dr_acula, potatohead,·and many others.


The new RamBlade will boot from the microSD card - I will refer to it as an SD card as they are equivalent from a software perspective. The RamBlade does not necessarily require a PropPlug to program it. It will come with a preprogramed Eeprom with code to load a binary from the SD card.

This has already been done with PropDos and PropCmd and I have run a version on the TriBlade many months ago.

Drac has written Xmodem for file transfers to the CPM disk files and the same basics could be used to get files onto the SD card in FAT16 format.

It is now relatively easy to transfer files to SD cards from Windows.·Some PCs, laptops and printers come with SD slots. Adapters are also fairly cheap and readily available.

So, what we require is some standard code to reside in the Eeprom which does not require modification. Something akin to PropDos.·PropDos can load and run a binary from the·SD card. ProCmd extends this feature looking·for a file "autoexec.bin" and if found, loads and·runs it.

In the case of the RamBlade, it will not be known what is on the other end of the serial lines, as well as the baudrate. I am proposing the "autoexec.bin" file will contain the executable which also defines the hardware attached.

Due to the timing of the release of RamBlade, I will most likely have to do the code and publish it under MIT for further development. Most likely it will be a cut-down of PropDos and PropCmd.

I am interested in any comments or suggestions. This code will apply equally to any operating system and hardware.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

If you are using the fsrw used in Propdos, (Thanks to Mike Green) then it's a simple couple lines..

          fsrw.popen(string("yourprog.bin"),"r")
          fsrw.bootSDCard

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Cluso99

OBC: Yes thanks - I have used that already (in PropCmd).

Guess I was thinking a little more like options, but then I don't know what hardware is connected so cannot really give any feedback or ask any questions.

Maybe I am thinking more like DOS on the PC. Looking at autoexec.bat to see what binary to run, baudrate, etc.

So I am looking further than just booting RamBlade with ZiCog/CPM. I want to be able to boot a number of different binary files.

I am just thinking aloud LOL.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm

Mike Green

Given that you've got a lot of memory to play with, a DOS-like scheme sounds fine. You could even use a stripped down version of FemtoBasic if you wanted the potential for a command interpreter. It's easy to add special purpose statements and functions to it. It doesn't require a console if you don't need interaction, and it can load a text "autoexec" file from an SD card.

localroger

Cluso, I did a scheme in a prototype PropCMD 2 (which I never finished, due to other projects assuming priority) where the autoexec file contained the NAME of the .bin file to actually run. This wasn't much more complicated and was a lot more flexible, while still being short of a true batch file that could execute multiple commands. I just got in after three days in the middle of nowhere on business, if your'e interested tomorrow I'll look up and post the snippet that did the magic.

Cluso99

localroger: I am just musing with ideas to make it simple but with flexibility. However, I want it to load fast, not like windoze.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm