Stand-Alone Binary Image Loader

David Betz

Rayman wrote: »

Wow. I just looked at the proploader source code and it's about 1000X more complex than I imagined...

I think there must have been some intentional obfuscation going on there...

In any case, is the a problem with it being complicated? If all you're going to do is invoke it from a GUI then you just need to get the command line parameters right.

David Betz

Clock Loop wrote: »

JonnyMac wrote: »

Hmmm... seems easy enough, but something is amiss. I can open and download the same binary image in Propeller Tool without issue.

I did a test with my own (simple) binary and serial port, and it worked for me... hmm..

:\>proploader -s -p COM4 -e -r vb.binary
Opening file 'vb.binary'
Stepping down to 460800 baud
Stepping down to 230400 baud
Stepping down to 115200 baud
Using single-stage download
Downloading file to port COM4
1292 bytes sent
Verifying RAM
Programming EEPROM
Verifying EEPROM
Download successful!

:\>

I tried the same port to see if some bug...

:\>proploader -s -p COM41 -e -r vb.binary
Opening file 'vb.binary'
Stepping down to 460800 baud
Stepping down to 230400 baud
Stepping down to 115200 baud
Using single-stage download
Downloading file to port COM41
1292 bytes sent
Verifying RAM
Programming EEPROM
Verifying EEPROM
Download successful!

:\>

Odd that yours didn't say stepping down, or single stage download....


https://forums.parallax.com/profile/49778/David Betz might be able to help.?


Did you download the latest version of proploader, (that would explain the missing steps in the output)?

He may have been using an older version of proploader. Jeff had me add the "stepping down" logic so that the loader could start optimistically with a high speed and only back down to a lower speed when the high speed loads fail. The ActivityBoard and Flip don't ever need to back down.

jmg

Rayman wrote: »

Propellant has the feature (like Prop Tool) where it can automatically find and identify the serial port number and the Prop chip.

I don't think these other tools can do that, right?

David's code above includes this

    if (findprop(port) != 0) {
        serial_done();
        return PLOAD_STATUS_NO_PROPELLER;
    }

Of course, some setups might not like all their serial ports being wiggled....

David Betz

jmg wrote: »

Rayman wrote: »

Propellant has the feature (like Prop Tool) where it can automatically find and identify the serial port number and the Prop chip.

I don't think these other tools can do that, right?

David's code above includes this

    if (findprop(port) != 0) {
        serial_done();
        return PLOAD_STATUS_NO_PROPELLER;
    }

Of course, some setups might not like all their serial ports being wiggled....

In the interests of full disclosure, that isn't my code. It's Steve Denson's (jazzed).

Rayman

I do like the MIT license on proploader...

Maybe one day I'll have time to port this to MFC and give a GUI...

David Betz

Rayman wrote: »

I do like the MIT license on proploader...

Maybe one day I'll have time to port this to MFC and give a GUI...

Why not Qt so it can run on the Mac and Linux as well as Windows?

Tor

David Betz wrote: »

Tor wrote: »

It's been a long time since I wrote my loader (years), but at that time the alternative was buried inside the full propgcc build environment.

It's in a subdirectory that can easily be built on its own.

Tried a newer version.. needs propeller-elf-gcc installed, at least.

David Betz

Tor wrote: »

David Betz wrote: »

Tor wrote: »

It's been a long time since I wrote my loader (years), but at that time the alternative was buried inside the full propgcc build environment.

It's in a subdirectory that can easily be built on its own.

Tried a newer version.. needs propeller-elf-gcc installed, at least.

Ah, I had forgotten that. I needs that to build some helper code that gets downloaded for things like writing files to SD cards. It doesn't need propgcc at runtime though. PropLoader doesn't use PropGCC for anything other than building sample programs if that helps.