When I ordered this board, I thought it was the correct solution for
what I was trying to accomplish. My goal was to get a small embedded
board which I could use to control a robot I was looking at getting.
Some of my considerations were as follows:
It had to run QNX (either out of the box, or I could do the bsp for it)
I needed at least one rs-232 port (interface to the robot).
I needed some wireless network access.
I needed a usb port (for a camera).
It needed to run on 5v.
I thought I had all of the above in the rpx-lite that I got.
It runs QNX (well almost out of the box - see previous posts)
Rs-232 works.
It has a pcmcia slot (which I figured I could use with my orinoco card)
It has a usb port (well two actually).
It runs on 5v.
However, I have run into the following:
Although the binaries appear to be included for the bsp (ipl-rpx-lite
and startup-rpx-lite), the sources are not included in the bsp packages
for PPC.
This would make my current startup problems easier to solve.
Although there is a pcmcia slot on the board, I will apparently have to
write my own version of devp-pccard for it (which of course is
undocumented - i.e… no ddk for that one).
Although there is usb hardware, again it apparently does this on the
chip and is not supported by devu-?hci - which means I will have to
figure that out if I want to use it. There is a ddk for usb, but it is
for the applications to talk to the devu-?hci resmgrs, not the resmgr
itself.
So what started off as a promising piece of hardware, has turned into a
little more work than I had expected. And potentially not even doable
without more direct support from QSS.
Although there is a pcmcia slot on the board, I will apparently have to
write my own version of devp-pccard for it (which of course is
undocumented - i.e… no ddk for that one).
Well, that isn’t really true. You just need to power it up. Since
the ioport and irq are fixed you can just turn on the port and start
the right driver with the right values. Not as powerful as having a
full devp server, but it works.
Although there is usb hardware, again it apparently does this on the
chip and is not supported by devu-?hci - which means I will have to
figure that out if I want to use it. There is a ddk for usb, but it is
for the applications to talk to the devu-?hci resmgrs, not the resmgr
itself.
I would guess that this baby is a USB device and not a host. There is
nothing in our USB support for device-side stacks. You don’t need to
do too much to make it work actually since most of the smarts live on
the host (the whole point of USB). Talk to Freddy on IRC - he is mucking
about with the exact same thing on an StrongARM based board.
chris
–
Chris McKillop <cdm@qnx.com> “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”
Software Engineer, QSSL – Lewis Carroll – http://qnx.wox.org/
Although there is a pcmcia slot on the board, I will apparently have to
write my own version of devp-pccard for it (which of course is
undocumented - i.e… no ddk for that one).
Well, that isn’t really true. You just need to power it up. Since
the ioport and irq are fixed you can just turn on the port and start
the right driver with the right values. Not as powerful as having a
full devp server, but it works.
Alright, as soon as I get the driver I am looking for, I will give it a
try.
Although there is usb hardware, again it apparently does this on the
chip and is not supported by devu-?hci - which means I will have to
figure that out if I want to use it. There is a ddk for usb, but it is
for the applications to talk to the devu-?hci resmgrs, not the resmgr
itself.
I would guess that this baby is a USB device and not a host. There is
nothing in our USB support for device-side stacks. You don’t need to
do too much to make it work actually since most of the smarts live on
the host (the whole point of USB). Talk to Freddy on IRC - he is mucking
about with the exact same thing on an StrongARM based board.
The following is cut from the 823E reference manual. It looks like they
took the middle road, certainly supporting slave mode, and providing
some of the functionality for host mode:
The host controller programming model is very similar to the function
endpoint programming model and does not conform to the Open Host
Controller Interface (OHCI). Although Motorola plans to support full
host functionality, our implementation will not be OHCI or UHCI
(Universal Host Controller Interface) compatible. Those standards define
the software programming model so that software drivers can be
hardware-independent. Our implementation has a much more simplified
software interface.
In my particular case, I wanted to support a camera - which would be the
device side of the connection and I presume I would have to put the 823
into host mode?
The host controller programming model is very similar to the function
endpoint programming model and does not conform to the Open Host
Controller Interface (OHCI). Although Motorola plans to support full
host functionality, our implementation will not be OHCI or UHCI
(Universal Host Controller Interface) compatible. Those standards define
the software programming model so that software drivers can be
hardware-independent. Our implementation has a much more simplified
software interface.
In my particular case, I wanted to support a camera - which would be the
device side of the connection and I presume I would have to put the 823
into host mode?
Yes, the device would have to be in host mode. That being said, it isn’t
too hard to get a one-of USB system up and running. My friend was able to
get USB webcams working with QNX4 on his PC in a weekend-or-two before the
QNX4 USB stuff was released. It couldn’t be used for anything else, but
it did what it needed to do.
chris
–
Chris McKillop <cdm@qnx.com> “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”
Software Engineer, QSSL – Lewis Carroll – http://qnx.wox.org/
Although the binaries appear to be included for the bsp (ipl-rpx-lite
and startup-rpx-lite), the sources are not included in the bsp packages
for PPC.
This would make my current startup problems easier to solve.
I was told the rpx-lite BSP isn’t part of PE, but should be included in
a different edition (which I couldn’t find on the web page yet, so
I don’t know if it is released yet, or what it will be called).
Rick Duff <> rick@astranetwork.com> > wrote:
[…]
Although the binaries appear to be included for the bsp (ipl-rpx-lite
and startup-rpx-lite), the sources are not included in the bsp packages
for PPC.
This would make my current startup problems easier to solve.
I was told the rpx-lite BSP isn’t part of PE, but should be included in
a different edition (which I couldn’t find on the web page yet, so
I don’t know if it is released yet, or what it will be called).
I believe it is part of the auto bundle. I believe this is currently
a beta.
The source for the RPX-lite BSP is included with the Automotive Source
Bundle. The Automotive
Bundles are now released and available through your sales contact.
The source for the RPX-lite BSP is included with the Automotive Source
Bundle. The Automotive
Bundles are now released and available through your sales contact.
Will the rpx-lite BSP source be part of the PE version?
Dave Nickerson wrote:
The source for the RPX-lite BSP is included with the Automotive Source
Bundle. The Automotive
Bundles are now released and available through your sales contact.
Will the rpx-lite BSP source be part of the PE version?
The binary support for rpx-lite ships with PE but the source to the BSP will
only
be included as part of the Automotive Source Bundle.
Thanks. Is there a matrix somewhere that shows what ships with the Auto
bundle vs. PE? Is the Auto bundle a distribution of something like
PE+other or just an addition to any given distribution such as PE, SE,
CE? I would like to know so that I may be able to recommend the
purchasing of the correct developer’s seat to the appropriate people.
Thanks.
regards…
Miguel.
Dave Nickerson wrote:
The binary support for rpx-lite ships with PE but the source to the BSP will
only
be included as part of the Automotive Source Bundle.
The auto bundles and network bundles are designed as add-on components
for Momentics PE. The best resource to provide a break-down of the different
components between products would be your sales contact at QNX.
Thanks. Is there a matrix somewhere that shows what ships with the Auto
bundle vs. PE? Is the Auto bundle a distribution of something like
PE+other or just an addition to any given distribution such as PE, SE,
CE? I would like to know so that I may be able to recommend the
purchasing of the correct developer’s seat to the appropriate people.
Thanks.
regards…
Miguel.
Dave Nickerson wrote:
The binary support for rpx-lite ships with PE but the source to the BSP
will
only
be included as part of the Automotive Source Bundle.
Dave Nickerson wrote:
The source for the RPX-lite BSP is included with the Automotive Source
Bundle. The Automotive
Bundles are now released and available through your sales contact.
Will the rpx-lite BSP source be part of the PE version?
The binary support for rpx-lite ships with PE but the source to the BSP
will
only
be included as part of the Automotive Source Bundle.
