It's been a while since I updated anything here. I left PICs temporarily and played with TI MSP430's for a while. Now I'm tinkering with ARM7's. I ordered an Olimex LPC-P2148 board from Optimal Microsystems to learn with. Nice board.

I bought an Olimex ARM-USB-TINY, also from Optimal Microsystems, for programming and debugging.

At first I had no success getting Eclipse with the yagarto GCC toolchain working with the ARM-USB-TINY, so I downloaded Crossworks for ARM by Rowley Associates. Crossworks is a very nice IDE and debugger that uses the GCC toolchain, and it works great with the ARM-USB-TINY. A "Personal License" is only $150. I ran the 30-day demo till it expired.

Then I switched to Eclipse/yagarto with OpenOCD. Took some time to get it working, but it works. I'll probably stick with it now.

Here's a look at the Olimex LPC-P2148 board (left), and the ARM-USB-TINY (right).

Here I'm using the Predko 2-Wire LCD circuit with two pins of the LPC2148. Works just fine. I ported the C code from my PIC 16F88 source.

I'll be posting my little newb demo programs for the LPC-P2148 here as I learn stuff. To start, here's a little program that makes horrible noises and flashes the LEDs when you push the buttons on the board:

Buttons, LEDs and Piezo Beeper

#include "LPC214x.h"
#define PLOCK 0x400
void init(void);
void feed(void);

int main(void)
{
    int	i,j;
    init();		
    IODIR0 |= 0x00003c00;                       //set pin directions
    IOSET0 = 0x00001c00;                        //LEDs off, piezo bits prepped 
    IOCLR0 = 0x00002000; 
    while(1){
        if((IOPIN0 & 0x00008000) == 0){         //button 1 pressed?
            for(i=100;i<2500;i+=5){             //annoying ascending tones
                IOPIN0 ^= 0x00003000;
                for(j=0;j<i;j++);
            }
            IOPIN0 ^= 0x00000400;               //blink LED 1
        }
        else if((IOPIN0 & 0x00010000) == 0){    //button 2 pressed?
            for(i=2500;i>100;i-=5){             //annoying descending tones
                IOPIN0 ^= 0x00003000;
                for(j=0;j<i;j++);
            }
            IOPIN0 ^= 0x00000800;               //blink LED 2
        }
    }
}

void init(void)
{
    PLLCFG=0x24;                //set multiplier/divider values
    PLLFEED=0xaa;
    PLLFEED=0x55;
    PLLCON=0x01;                //enable PLL
    PLLFEED=0xaa;
    PLLFEED=0x55;
    while(!(PLLSTAT & PLOCK));  //wait for the PLL to lock to set frequency
    PLLCON=0x3;                 //connect the PLL as the clock source
    PLLFEED=0xaa;
    PLLFEED=0x55;
    MAMCR=0x02;                 //enable MAM
    MAMTIM=0x04;                //set number of clocks for flash memory fetch
    VPBDIV=0x01;                //set peripheral clock(pclk) to system clock(cclk)
}