Getting started with a custom board

[SpacedCowboy]

So the project I started back in January has finally come of age (more details here) - I now have a board in front of me that, when I type 'xrun -l' into Terminal.app, I get

Code: Select all

sh-3.2$ xrun -l

Available XMOS Devices
----------------------

  ID	Name			Adapter ID	Devices
  --	----			----------	-------
  0 	XMOS XTAG-3         	3CUoiRh.	O[0]

I have two questions regarding XN files.

1) What's the best way to get started writing code for a custom board - the 'New Project' target dialogue only lists boards that XMOS sell, there's no generic 'this processor' target that I can see. My CPU is an XL216 in TQFP form factor, so perhaps I'd be best off selecting the 'SliceKit (XL216)' board, and customizing it later if necessary ? I think that board is a BGA chip, I don't know if that changes anything... My tools are slightly out of date (14.3.2 rather than 14.3.3, but I didn't see anything in the release notes about a new feature like this. I will upgrade, promise :) I'm just hoping to get this question out there before taking the kid to his Saturday baseball game :)

2) In future, once I'm up and running, I will want to probe for the existence of a connected-via-link second XMOS chip. I'm assuming I can't do that with XN files, since everything seems to be specified for a given project. I would like the board to work both standalone, and to take advantage of the link if it is available, so I need something more dynamic.

Thanks for any help :)

Simon

[mon2]

Hi Simon. Underneath the target board / kit selections is a checkbox to show devices. There you can select the CPU of your liking.

[SpacedCowboy]

Hi Simon. Underneath the target board / kit selections is a checkbox to show devices. There you can select the CPU of your liking.

Duh! :)

I saw that, even clicked it, but it didn't register that the long list of CPUs were now not tied to a given dev-board.

Anyway, I now have "the blinky lights" running on a pattern on the debug LEDs. All I had to do was specify the 'Oscillator="24MHz" line in the XN file, and it actually told me to do that, so things are looking up :)

Thanks again :) I'll dive into getting all the on-board stuff working, then it's the bus-interface to the XE, and finally I'll want to get the Xlink's going across to the expansion box :)

Cheers
Simon