Release Two Workspace (/Fork name TBD)

[steffen707]

Ha ha, this is making my head spin and I have enjoyed building computers for 15 years. Never took any soldering, computer programming courses.

I bet this would make a complete non-computer person overwhealmed. Think i'm going to have to do lots of reading up and post a how to program mpguino for dummies.

Granted my arduino board I got works for uploading new software to the chip, it certainly is a pain to unscrew my job box, pull the chip out, put it into the arduino upload and then put back together.

On board usb or modifying it with these options you have suggested so that the usb is inside the job box would be ideal. Just gotta read up and understand how its all done.

[dcb]

well, not to sound less than loving, but the "enable the newbies" approach by arduino itself is partly what facilitates a lot of headspinning once you get much past das blinkenlights. Once your bootloader craps itself, then what?

80,000 hits
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...aqi=&aql=f&oq=

It's happened to me enough times that I said screw it.

[steffen707]

Lol, yeah arduino sure does make it inviting for a newb to start programming and playing around.

I don't intend to learn programming more than I already do, (q basic in junior high, and half a semester of intro to java programming in college). I just simply want to be able to upgrade the software on my sweet ass mpguino gauge.

[FalconFour]

Originally Posted by dcb

well, not to sound less than loving, but the "enable the newbies" approach by arduino itself is partly what facilitates a lot of headspinning once you get much past das blinkenlights. Once your bootloader craps itself, then what?

80,000 hits
arduino bootloader corrupted - Google Search

It's happened to me enough times that I said screw it.

Strange, I never once had an Arduino bootloader crap itself. I have toasted an ATmega328 chip though, in trying to build a etch-it-yourself Arduino board and having some traces crossed... but in the several hundred times I've flashed the chip, and the almost-like-a-year-now I've had my mpguino (flashed with the Arduino bootloader), it's not once crapped itself, not even rebooted (hence the working clock)

Also, flashing the missing Arduino bootloader onto an MPGuino chip is pretty simple, I built my "programmer" out of a parallel port hood (db25 male) with all the resistors and wiring inside the hood, then brought out to the pins via an old stereo CD-ROM audio cable. Broke up a pin header strip and glued it together to form the 2x3 block, and voila. Used an old laptop with a parallel port to program the bootloader with the Arduino software, and bam.

I guess another Arduino could also be used to flash a bootloader as well, there's a sketch in there that does it. So if you have another proper Arduino, you could use it to make an Arduino chip out of the MPGuino chip, then hack away

[bobski]

Originally Posted by dcb

issat have a regulator?

Doesn't look like it. But then it doesn't have any of the other IO hardware either. Linear regulator circuits are about as simple as they get... Voltage in on one pin, ground on one, voltage out on the other. Besides, like I said before, a regulator with a turn-off lead would be a nice addition... Omitting the regulator from the uC board lets you pick your own without wasting hardware.

[dcb]

Originally Posted by FalconFour

Strange, I never once had an Arduino bootloader crap itself. I have toasted an ATmega328 chip though, in trying to build a etch-it-yourself Arduino board and having some traces crossed... but in the several hundred times I've flashed the chip, and the almost-like-a-year-now I've had my mpguino (flashed with the Arduino bootloader), it's not once crapped itself, not even rebooted (hence the working clock)

again, in my experience, it seems to be more likely when powering it up, especially if you are not real deliberate with the application of power. You have this blob of code that is sitting around for several seconds, expecting a very few number of bits to trigger a flash clobbering. You don't have to google very far to see that corrupted bootloaders is a genuine issue, despite whatever conditions you might be using.

I did not have much problem reproducing the issue with a bootloader. I have yet to be able to reproduce it without a bootloader (despite trying very hard).

[FalconFour]

Oohhh... I can indeed see how that can become a problem. I'll add that to my to-do list, as I've seen some pretty elegant alternative Arduino bootloaders that don't clobber so easily. Strange, though, that it would have the ability to overwrite itself, especially by accident... :/

I just don't like requiring people to build funky hardware like an ICSP cable in order to mod their devices... it's like locking people out a la Microsoftism, IMO. If a guy has an Arduino board, and the project is called "MPGuino", I think they'd expect to be able to play with it on a whim

[dcb]

Originally Posted by FalconFour

..t's like locking people out a la Microsoftism...

Now you are just being nasty

MS was never this open or logical about anything...

So we need to think of a name for your fork if you are bent on relearning all the mistakes of arduino (and no, you cannot just usurp mpguino).

[dcb]

Also, I don't know if you can "fix" it with a different bootloader. I use different brownout detection level fuses than arduino also (need to sort out ISP programming to do that) as well as locking out runtime flash modifications. Really isp isn't that big of a hardship, less than $15 for nice parts (or a hacked up parallel cable) that only those folks who want to mess with reprogramming have to bear, and it means those folks a self-reliant and have more options (i.e. fuses and other "real" programmer goodies like more ROM and stability).

Arduino Forum - under 1k bootloader, any interest?
"My understanding from the datasheet... When the voltage level is too low, the processor will continue to run but may not correctly execute instructions. "

[FalconFour]

Well, unlike modding the actual Arduino libraries, it's not out of the question to modify the bootloader that's used on the chips to make them a little "smarter", like adding the lower brownout detection settings to the loader code, eh?

I imagine all the loaders are open source, and they might be assembly, sure, but I think we can jimmy a few additional settings in there early in the code so it has the best chance of catching the "stfugtfo" instruction quick enough...