DM320 Platform developer board

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NOTE: THIS PAGE IS OBSOLETE. IT MAY HAVE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE, BUT IS OUT OF DATE OR NO LONGER PERTINENT.


Image:Dev_bd1.jpg

Contents

[edit] Developer Board General

For those that have not followed the discussion on the developer boards, the general idea is that Neuros, in the course of ordinary product development, would make some extra "developer boards" that could be used by the community to help develop applications and firmware in parallel with us. Unlike the development boards that are normally sold by middleware companies (for prototypes or academics, etc.), these would be a break even proposition that would hopefully spur interest in developing for the Neuros products. If developers wanted to use them to develop something entirely different, well, as long as we're not losing money, then who cares?

Because these boards are based on a dual core processor with a 200MHz ARM, a lot of development can be done with an entirely free toolchain.

[edit] Versions of the Developer Board

The most recent version of the developer board is version is for the R3 (now called the OSD). This version is expected to ship June 15, 2006, and may be ordered from American Techpushers. More details about the board are available on the OSD Developer Board page

[edit] History

Dev Boards arrive in Xiamen

and Developer Board Plan

[edit] 442v2 and the Recorder 3 Summary

  • First version of development board
    • All peripherals for current 442v2 (SD, USB client, HDD Connector) plus
    • Plus a few extras
      • Serial
      • Ethernet
      • CF
      • IR
      • IR Blaster?

This development board is everything the Recorder III is, and we will use it for development of both the Recorder III as well as the 442v2. We will use it to debug the schematics and for the production layout and we will make a small quantity of these available for ~$100 we can sell them as development boards on the website and give folks something to play with pretty quickly. Basically it's a Recorder III in a larger form factor and with easier connections to things that developers need (i.e. serial, etc)

Although not exactly the same as the N3 Developer board, it will give N3 folks something to get started with as well (to get FLAC, etc to run on the ARM).

We'll put these in a decent case so that once development reaches a reasonable stage this could actually be used as a real product.

The first run of these developer boards is currently shipping.

[edit] Product Chart for DM320 Products

See here Product Chart for DM320

[edit] Developer Board Discussion

As more people become experienced with the developer boards, this section will become a collection of tips and tricks for the board. Most of these will be summaries of discussions held on the Neuros-DM320 Hardware group on Google Groups.

[edit] Software

For now, the first step to using the developer board is compiling and setting up the software on your host PC. Download the BSP and toolchain from the Neuros subversion repository, [1]: 

 svn co http://svn.neurostechnology.com/svn/neuros-bsp/trunk

Then compile them as described in the BSP installation document. Configure NFS and TFTP as necessary.

If the root ramdisk does not compile, you may need to strip some modules in extra. Add this line to rootfs/Makefile: 

 ../toolchain/arm-linux/bin/strip \
 $(CONFIG_SYSAPPS_PREFIX)/lib/modules/*/extra/*

However, you may need to modify the line to avoid stripping aic23.ko and tvp5150.ko, as those may fail if you strip them.

[edit] Ethernet

The ethernet jack on the development apparently had its wires crossed. As a result, you can only use it with an autosensing switch or a crossover cable. This issue will not be present on production boards, but is a minor issue in any case.

[edit] Serial Console

The DB-9 port on the board should be connected to a PC. It can then be accessed using any terminal emulator for the serial. The emulator should be set to 115200,n,8,1.

[edit] Booting

Before attempting to connect power, be sure the power switch is 'up' (in the off position). Connect power, and switch the board on. You should see the LED near the power switch illuminate, and uBoot starting to run on the console. Do a 'print' command in uBoot to see the many environment variables. Change the ones you need so that it points to your workstation's TFTP and NFS shares, 'save' them back to flash, and you should have a working dev board.

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