Help!!Newbie with Propeller Demo Board Kit

ElectriKC

In the book Programming and Customizing the Multicore Propeller Microcontroller, chapter 3 section Development with the Parallax Serial Terminal, I believe I need to download PST Debug LITE..but when I go to download it there is a message saying C:user/my name......PST Debug LITE does not exist..and on the instructions of the given code Test Time Counting.spin, under PUB Go, it has debug. Start(debug#COMMA_DELIMITED) and when I press f10 to load it there is a message that says needs a constant name needed or something..but the book says nothing of this problem..Please help if you can..This is the only code that I cannot press f10 to load..all the others did it fine until this one..I think it has to do with not being able to download the PST Debug LITE file..Thank You for your help and patience, I am new to programming..This is my first time with any programming and I got most of the stuff in the book until this point..This is also my first post so Thanks again!!

StefanL38

HI ElectriKC,

welcome to the propeller-forum!

The members in this forum are really friendly and patient even with the
most basic questions. I often think the propeller-chip is a microcontroller
that is attractive to people that are very open-minded and therefore patient.

Please do the "medium-neewbees" a big favor and ask really basic questions that can be answered by "medium-newbees".

If you look through the threads of this forum you will find basic questions
and high advanced questions and threads. So this is a place for everyone.

From beginners learning how to code for the first time up to assembler-tweaking-freakin-freaks
doing things that make the brains of other assembler-tweaking-freaks SPIN in twisted-circles ;-)

Parallax and the members of this forum always like to improve the
"feel-at-home-factor" as much as possible.

You wil NEVER get a "RTFM" (read that f... manual) as an answer.
You will get good will and direct help or a detailed hints WHERE in the manual more detailed information can be found.

So just start write a 10-20 lines description what you want to do and how far you did come and a question.
In most cases it is good to add your code or datasheets as attachment.
If others can see that you have tried even a little bit on your own and now have questions you will get answers.
Start using the mentioned sources and come back as soon as you have a question.


back to your question: Debug-Lite belongs to the PE-Kit Lab
Everything about the PE-Kit Lab can be found here
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?89958-Propeller-Education-Kit-Labs-Tools-and-Applications&p=617192#post617192

I also attached the Debug-Lite files to this posting.

keep the questions coming
best regards

Stefan

ElectriKC

Thank You for the warm welcome. I appreciate it. Your download link worked for me, but I am still having trouble when I press f10 to load the Test Time Counting.spin code..under the PUB TimerMs it has debug.Style(debug#COMMA_DELIMITED) and when I press f10 it highlights COMMA_DELIMITED and says ERROR expected a constant name..The point of the section I am on in the book is to have the Parallax Serial Terminal display the DEBUG_LITE info and I cannot connect the code to the Serial Terminal because of the previous stated f10 not loading issue..Thanks again for your help and I will post where you directed.

Duane Degn

ElectriKC wrote: »

when I press f10 it highlights COMMA_DELIMITED and says ERROR expected a constant name.

The Spin file corresponding to "debug" object needs to be in the same folder as the program you're working on. Just having the child object open in the Propeller tool isn't enough for the compiler to find it (though it claims it can).

ElectriKC

Thanks Duane!! Both the Debug file and the Spin file are from the website..Can you explain to me how to put them both in the same folder or whatever I need to do..Than ks I appreciate it for your time

ElectriKC

I think I just made a folder and put both the test time code and the debug lite in there and put it in the Parallax tool folder and same nothing changed(doubt I did it correctly..Another thing is if I open Parallax Serial Terminal and enable it as I press f11 for the debug code(not sure if your even supposed to) to load it says no propeller chip found even though when I press f7 it is found..If noone can help I appreciate the help thus far..I may have to skip this and move on because the next few codes in the book all have the same thing..I am almost certain, since all previous codes loaded, that it has something to do with the debug lite code and I cant get it to cooperate with the Test Time code..Thanks anyways you guys..I tried

StefanL38

ElecrtiKC,

please make a zip-archive of your code and attach it to a posting.
in the propeller-tool click in the main menu "file-archive-project...
this will create a zip-file with all the code that gets compiled

For attaching the zipfile to a posting use the "Go Advanced" button in the right bottom of the reply-text-inputfield.

best regards
Stefan

Duane Degn

Could you post a link to the files you're using or attach the files to a post?

Is the debug object the one Stephan attached to his post above?

It's odd that your Propeller is found with F7 but not F11 but that's happened to me several times. It's usually just a temporary problem whenever I've had it.

Are you using the Propeller Demo Board? If not, which board?

Edit: I just saw Stefan's post. You can't archive a project if it doesn't compile. You'll need to either make your own zip file or just post each file separately.

ElectriKC

I apologize for not knowing how to zip file, but the link for the codes is ftp://ftp.propeller-chip.com/PCMProp/Chapter_03, then go to the source one and it will open the folder with the codes in it....I open the Test Time Counting.spin(the one I need) and the PST Debub LITE that Stefan has provided....and yes it is the Propeller Demo Board....Thanks for the help

Ariba

ElectriKC wrote: »

Thank You for the warm welcome. I appreciate it. Your download link worked for me, but I am still having trouble when I press f10 to load the Test Time Counting.spin code..under the PUB TimerMs it has debug.Style(debug#COMMA_DELIMITED) and when I press f10 it highlights COMMA_DELIMITED and says ERROR expected a constant name..The point of the section I am on in the book is to have the Parallax Serial Terminal display the DEBUG_LITE info and I cannot connect the code to the Serial Terminal because of the previous stated f10 not loading issue..Thanks again for your help and I will post where you directed.

Looks like the constant names have changed in the DEBUG-LITE object since the book was written.
The constant name that was COMMA_DELIMITED is now just COMMAS. So you need to change the name to "debug#COMMAS" where you get the error.

Andy

ElectriKC

Awesome Thanks, but another error occured right under it in the debug.Start(115200) where the closed parenthesis is highlighted and it says error ",". expected..Can you help? The comment to the right is Start debug cog..Thanks

Ariba

So also the parameters for the start methode have changed. Who knows what else... so it's maybe the simplest to load the old version of the PST_Debug_LITE from the ftp server you linked in post #9 ("source" subdirectory). This seems to have the old constant names.
If you have the old object in the same directory as the example spin code then this object is used, also if you have a newer version elsewhere.

Andy

Duane Degn

ElectriKC wrote: »

Awesome Thanks, but another error occured right under it in the debug.Start(115200) where the closed parenthesis is highlighted and it says error ",". expected..Can you help? The comment to the right is Start debug cog..Thanks

This has got to be frustrating. There are more than one object with similar names. Depending on which version you're using you many need to add a second parameter to the start call.

Try the following.

debug.start(115_200, debug#DEFAULT)

It looks like the turorial code needs to be updated and cleaned up.

ElectriKC

SWEET!! We're getting there, but now it says the same thing as before when I go to press enable on the Parallax Serial Terminal as its loading..it says " No Propeller chip found on any port. Unable to open COM3..Thanks

Ariba

You need to disable the COM port in PST when you want to load a new code from the PropTool. They use the same COM port alternately and can not share it at the same time.

Andy

ElectriKC

Ok....I got it I think....but it does not look exactly like PST Debug LITE....it doesnt have the whole right side column starting at dT=8000000 etc..It looks almost blank only with pins 0 to 31..Is it supposed to look this way for now?? What the book has is it is supposed to be showing the PST with the title in it Parallax Serial Terminal Debug-LITE and it has timings(I think) with m=o etc..Im not getting timings only the "blank" pin screen I mentioned..Sorry my word use isnt any help..Ive been at this for days

ElectriKC

After I hit enter it started to show the timestamp..not like the book's example of course..example showed it horizontal and mine was vertical(harder to read,but I cant be picky after all this), and the book example has times like m=10,s=59,ms=996 and mine were alot different..Anyways, I appreciate all your guys patient work with me and I am sure I will be back to gain your knowledge..Once again thanks for the patience..This was a disgusting waste of a day and a half due to a book error or whatever happened..lol..Thanks guys!!