Questions & Answers

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Ames on June 29, 2009 at 2:43pm

So the MQX is a RTOS but it is proprietary. Are there other RTOS we can load on this board for more open-source use? I'm loath to use some proprietary RTOS if I don't have to.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Engine_Ear on June 29, 2009 at 3:02pm

Hey Stanley,

freertos.org has a listing for the 51CN ColdFire V1 core which the initial tower boards come with. I know the site says it's a 52CN, but I believe that's a mistake.

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Ames on July 1, 2009 at 10:44am

Thanks! I'll check them out.

Demented

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Permalink Reply by Eduardo Montanez on June 30, 2009 at 12:35am

Stanley,

I don't think MQX is as strict as you might think. I'm still ramping up on it so don't know details, but I do know it's free and it's modular approach makes it attractive for future add-on drivers (graphics, motor control, etc.) What is your biggest concern, just curious?

On the other hand, I know for a fact that there is freeRTOS port for MCF51CN128. It plays well with uIP ethernet stack and the Tower System. So this would be a good alternative.

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Permalink Reply by Stanley Ames on July 1, 2009 at 10:43am

Both as a practical consideration--we do open source projects and want our stuff to be truly free in both senses--and as an ethical consideration--open and honest and all that jazz. The other thing that has me wondering is the IDE they are suggesting with it, CodeWarriror or some such? I'll give it a try but, again, prefer stuff I don't have to pay for and that let me look around in the gears.

Thanks for the replies!

Demented

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on June 30, 2009 at 2:23am

What are my options for programming the Tower in a Vista64 environment? Codewarrior refuses to install, and I've spent huge amounts of time trying to get around that with no luck (analyzing installation logs, emulating WinXP with QEMU just to run Codewarrior...). I contacted Freescale tech support, and they said is that it's not supported, there are no workarounds, and they have no idea when 64bit support will be added. I really don't want to change my OS, especially with 4 gigs of RAM in my machine.

It's very frustrating, having a brand new Tower sitting on my desk that I can't do anything with!

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Permalink Reply by GeekTastic on June 30, 2009 at 10:27am

We're looking into this for you and we'll get back to you shortly. Thanks for the feedback.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on July 3, 2009 at 7:36pm

Any luck on the Vista64 question? I'd really like to be able to use my Tower!

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Permalink Reply by Eduardo Montanez on July 6, 2009 at 11:21pm

Alex,

Sorry about the wait, I have been pinging several sources to get you some answers. So it is certain that today's CodeWarrior for Microcontrollers does not support Vista 64-bit edition. It only supports Vista 32-bit edition. I still have a question out to find out if the next CodeWarrior for Microcontroller release will add Vista 64-bit version support. Now I know this does not help you much.

Therefore, I have been investigating alternatives to CodeWarrior. I received acknowledgment from IAR Systems that their Embedded Workbench development tools do support Vista 64-bit, MCF51CN128 and OSBDM. You can find more information at Embedded Workbench for ColdFire link. To be honest with you I am new to the IAR tool chain and have not yet tested it with the Tower. I know that this is their first time supporting OSBDM since the TWR-MCF51CN is the first board to include this debug circuitry. So I think it is all worth a shot. I will try to give it a go myself. They have both 30 day full evaluation version and code size limited kick start versions. I also know that the DVD that comes with the TWR-MCF51CN-KIT has a 3rd party software section that includes the IAR installer.

On the other hand, in the near future CodeSourcery will also release free development tools that also support the MCF51CN and OSBDM. I confirmed from their website that they support 64-bit x86 processors. This is another alternative to CodeWarrior, but not yet released.

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on July 9, 2009 at 10:43pm

Thank you for all your effort. I downloaded the kickstart version of IAR's Embedded Workbench for Coldfire, it installed just fine... but the drivers refused to install under my OS.

Right now, there seems to be no way to use the Tower with Vista64.

With no way to program the Tower with my current system, I'm going to have to go with my last ditch option: repartitioning my hard drive, installing XP, and dual booting.

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Permalink Reply by Eduardo Montanez on July 9, 2009 at 11:07pm

bummer! Just curious, what driver failed to install? I'm trying to learn what the root cause is for compatibility. Was it the OSBDM hardware detect?

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Permalink Reply by JimD on August 24, 2009 at 6:59am

It's up to FSL and P&E to provide drivers for x64, if any product is to support it.
The driver *must* be built for 64 bit, however 32 bit code can talk to the drivers.
That is, in windows x64, there is no support for 32 bit kernel code.

If done carefully, the same 32 bit code can use both 32 bit and 64 bit device drivers, as a 32 bit program and open and talk to a 64 bit driver.
Until this happens NO product will support x64.

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