WiFi Loader

John Abshier

I was considering buying an Activity Board WX and the ESP8266 WiFi board. But I cannot find a program to load Spin files (binary or EEPROM) over WiFi. I went to GitHub and looked at PropLoader but don't want to have to install C/MiniGW tools to build from source. On the GitHub site I was unable to find any documentation on how to use PropLoader. It saddens me that support for Spin has pretty much gone away.

John Abshier

msrobots

+1

Mike

MikeDYur

+1

Mike

Mike Green

+1

Mike

frida

+1

David Betz

For normal 5mhz crystal boards:

To do a wi-fi load:

proploader -i ip-addr foo.binary

Replace ip-addr with the IP address of the wi-fi module, something like 192.168.0.100.

To do a serial load:

proploader -p port foo.binary

Replace port with the serial port, something like COM23.

There are lots of other options that you can see by typing:

proploader -?

Clock Loop

These two products are great. Programming the prop chip that is in another room wirelessly, connected to high voltage...
No risk to my computer~!

Very good sir!

https://www.parallax.com/product/32420d
https://www.parallax.com/product/32420s

Info should be attached to the product pages, why not link to the github content on the product pages.

https://github.com/parallaxinc/PropLoader/releases

The WINDOWS file you need folks is specifically: (go to the above link for the latest version.)
https://github.com/parallaxinc/PropLoader/releases/download/v1.0-37/proploader-win.zip

Clock Loop

The github site doesn't have the propeller loader for the raspberry pi, so here:
PropLoader v1.0-37 for raspberrypi.

David Betz

The GitHub site doesn't have any of the executables does it? I'm pretty sure the Makefile can build a RaspberryPi version using the RaspberryPi cross tools. I don't think Parallax ever releases RaspberryPi binaries of anything because they don't have the resources to support the Pi.

Clock Loop

David Betz wrote: »

The GitHub site doesn't have any of the executables does it?

Im not sure who said the github site didn't have ANY?, i sure didn't.
I did say the parallax product support pages dosen't...

Not here:
https://www.parallax.com/product/32420s#details
https://www.parallax.com/product/32420s#downloads

Uh, i think people don't expect them to be in github, let alone know how to navigate to "releases".
They figure all files will be linked in the parallax support page.

They link the firmware directly, but not the proploader.

David Betz wrote: »

I don't think Parallax ever releases RaspberryPi binaries of anything because they don't have the resources to support the Pi.

No doubt, but its now a staple in doing prop work due to its ability to act as a computer replacement.

David Betz wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the Makefile can build a RaspberryPi version using the RaspberryPi cross tools.

I didn't know that, i can't find the list of makefile command combinations possible, and reading the makefile helps but i don't know the structure enough on how to piece the syntax together.

And, so still, someone would need to make a working chain in any os to get the ability to have a pi executable, i neverknew this or any tool chain built on windows can make a raspberry pi executable like that. (if its makefile is coded as such)

David Betz

To build the RaspberyPi version of proploader under Ubuntu using the RaspberryPi cross compiler type the following command:

make CROSS=rpi

To make the Windows version under Ubuntu using the MinGW tools, type:

make CROSS=win32

I don't build anything under Windows.

David Betz

deleted

Ken Gracey

All the pieces are there to make this happen - we just need a developer to pick up this tool http://developer.parallax.com/propelleride/ and get connected with Jeff Martin in Parallax about the right implementation with PropLoader.

I'd really like to facilitate this effort. I will also ask Jeff about getting it added to Propeller Tool. At the moment, though, he's got two projects in front of this effort: some improvements to our BlocklyProp Chromebook Launcher and Parallax IDE for Chrome. These are necessary for our existence, for certain.

If we've got any developers who could start with Propeller IDE, this would be the quickest way to get WiFi support for Spin.

Ken Gracey

David Betz

I don't think it's quite as easy to get PropellerIDE to use proploader as it was for SimpleIDE. In the case of SimpleIDE, all that was required was to replace propeller-load with proploader and modify a few command line arguments. PropellerIDE doesn't use propeller-load. It has its own custom built-in loader. Either that loader would have to be enhanced to support the wi-fi protocol or it would have to be removed and proploader used instead.

rogloh

I looked at some of this last night hoping I might even be able to modify it but at this point agree with David. Even though I didn't spend a lot of time analyzing the PropellerIDE code and don't know much about QT, right away I got the feeling the way its been structured (it's fairly granular) that it did not seem to provide the ability to cleanly integrate with some external loader tool because this tool would not provide the same amount of direct feedback it wanted during the loading process to control things. Probably why it hasn't been done yet. Likely needs some amount of restructuring to suit wifi based loading. Not impossible of course though probably a little trickier than expected.