Re: MSP430 JTAG over USB for Linux?

On 2007-09-28, Michael N. Moran <mnmoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Both TI and Olimex make USB->JTAG programmers/debuggers for
the MSP430, but based on my googling, there doesn't seem to be
any Linux support for these.

The TI ones (both the 6-wire JTAG and the 2-wire
spy-bi-wire) work fine under Linux using msp430-gdbproxy.

I've looked at the gdbproxy, but I'm having a hard time
understanding exactly what it uses to talk to the USB
JTAG device.

A USB JTAG or spy-bi-wire adapter shows up as a serial port
(e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0). It looks like they use a standard TI
USB<->serial chip which is interfaced to an MSP430F16x which
then talks to the target device (AFAICT).

If the Olimex USB widgets work with the TI .dll files under
Windows, then I believe they'll work with msp430-gdbproxy
under Linux as well. My understanding is that if Olimex has to
provide custom .dll files for their USB widgets, then they
won't work.

Sorry ... I'm old and confused, but don't the .dll libraries
only run under Windows?

Right.

Or is there some WINE stuff going on here?

No. You don't actually use the .dlls under Linux. It's just a
handy way to tell if the off-brand USB debug adapters are
drop-in replacements for the TI ones. If the vendor supplies
their own .dll files along with the USB adapter, I believe that
means they don't talk the same protocols as the TI ones and
therefore won't work with gdbproxy.

If the off-brand USB dongle will work with the TI .dll files,
then it's protocol-compatible and will also work with gdbproxy.

Quoting from the description of the Olimex MSP430-JTAG-ISO,
JTAG-TINY and JTAG-RF:

MSP430.dll makes it compatible with all existing software
which works with TI-USB-FET (emulates TI-USB-FET)

That leads me to believe that it's not compatible with the TI
..dll's and therefore not compatible with gdbproxy under Linux.
I might be wrong...

Here's the definitive place for answers on gcc/gdb and the
MSP430:

http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=42303

I've gone down this path, but the question "seems"
un-answered.

There seems to have been a bit of confusion and misinformation
in a few threads there lately. Steve Underwood is the
maintainer of msp430-gdbproxy, so pay particular attention to
his posts. Oleg Verych has been working on the Linux driver
for the TI USB-serial chip, so also pay attention to whatever
he says also.

Support for USB stuff under Linux has been rather, um, "fluid".
There were several different patches for getting the Linux
USB-serial driver to recognize the ez430 spy-bi-wire widget,
but it appears it's settling down. Recent Linux kernels (as of
2.6.22 at least) include a driver that works with the TI
USB<->serial chip (though for the ez430 you need a hotplug
script or udev rule to configure it after it's found). The
current msp430-gdbproxy does support both styles of USB adapter
(standard JTAG and spy-bi-wire).

Sorry about being *thick*, but I just like to understand
how these things work before I fork out the cash.

No worries. It's taken me a fair while to figure it all out.

If you want to do spy-bi-wire (used with the smaller target
parts), you can probably get an ez430+2013 for free from your
distributor. If you want to play with the larger parts which
use standard JTAG, then I'm not aware of any free deals. The
$15 parallel port JTAG widget from Olimex works great, but you
need a real PC parallel port (I don't believe that the
USB<->printer-port adapters work).

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I'm ANN LANDERS!!
at I can SHOPLIFT!!
visi.com
.

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