Firmware application version #3 release
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N64 updates:
Some extra timing delays were necessary for consistent dumping.
Includes fixes for N64 dumping that proved working for me on 10+ carts I
dumped successfully. There is now a .csv in docs folder with cart size
in bytes, divide that number by 131,072 to get size in mbits for -z
flag. Includes CRC32 checksum that can be verified using HxD hex
editor. N64 file output is big-endian so it reads as it should in hex
editor which is .z64 file format. lua script updated to print out the
game name from the in rom header.
NES updates:
flashing support for quite a few different mappers including GTROM,
MMC2, MMC4, action53, easyNSF, and other tweaks to rd/wr timings.
FIRMWARE UPDATES:
inlretro2.lua script now tries to poll the firmware "application
version" and suggest updating your firmware if you're not running the
version in this release. You can always update your firmware using the
bootloader method in the readme. But there is an easier method if you
have an stm32 based device (translated: you purchased your device in
2018 or later). AND you're already running firmware version v2.3.x
simply run the new scripts which were added in this commit:
PCB version 2.0 or 2.1 (large square PCB with option for 6 connectors)
>inlretro.exe -s scripts\inlretro_inl6fwupdate.lua
PCB version 2.0N (smaller PCB with NES connector only:
>inlretro.exe -s scripts\inlretro_inlNESfwupdate.lua
Now that it's easier for the host software to detect the firmware
application version can work towards having the scripts automatically
update the device firmware for you.. But still need to implement this..
Put bunch of notes in Readme.txt on how to update device firmware to
v2.3 using dfusedemo. Anyone with a device currently in their hands
will want to update to this latest version using the dfusedemo
instructions there. Or the AVR instructions if you have an old kazzo.
For devices shipping after Dec 1st 2018 I will be flashing this latest
v2.3 firmware which has it's own firmware updater so the INLretro host
software can easily and seamlessly update the firmware for you without
any external software, switch or jumper operation on the PCB.
This update also includes some power functions in the bootloader
dictionary. Can now make direct read/write access to the entire ARM
memory space. Maybe I'll add this to the AVR someday..?
Having this previously would have actually allowed me to bootstrap
a switchless bootloader without dfuse.. ahh well...
Also turned the watchdog timer on for the STM32 build finally.
Requires refreshing every ~1sec, currently only done in the main.
Added application versioning to address 0x08000800 in the binary.
Couldn't get the linker script to do this for me for some reason.
So for now I just manually put it in the binary file.
The fwupdate.lua script has a lot more checks now. Uses the new
bootloader dict functions to dump device firmware and make sure
all looks good before it starts erasing firmware.
Haven't done much testing with the current AVR build. Got a report
there was a problem with UNROM flashing, will have to check that out.
Done with the firmware for awhile now hopefully. Need to clean up some
things with the main program & inlretro.lua script. Start making better
use of some recent contributions by several gracious people.
Maybe I'll get going on gameboy, GBA, & sega soon.. Got a ton of
NESmaker devices to push out the door now with this latest build. So
might be slow for a bit..
Have basic testing complete of erasing application/main code, flashing
data, and reading it back for verification.
This ended up being pretty big task to get working. Some previous
efforts helped out quite a bit though. The first thing needed was a
path out of the main application and this was done in bootload.c by
calling PREP_FWUPDATE. That jumps to the fwupdate area (first 2KByte)
of flash.
There the 'fwupate main' takes over. It updates the usbFunction
Setup/Write ram function pointers to fwupdate's own setup function.
Then it must hijack the processor's execution so once the PREP_UPDATE
exception is complete the processor returns to the fwupdater instead of
the main. This is done by snooping back through the stack and finding
the stack frame keying off of xPSR and valid PC address. It then stomps
the PC & LR in the stack frame to steal execution from the main thread.
After that, all usb transfers are handled by the fwupdater.
Able to get buy without the write so far since setup packets provide
data but are also IN transfers to give path for sending data back to
host. So to keep things small and simple this is all that's handled so
far. Once I get tired of it being so slow I can implement the
usbFunctionWrite and speed things up quite a bit. Haven't actually
timed it yet, but for only 20KByte of data it and not being very
frequent it shouldn't be a big deal. The more I say this the more I'm
thinking I'll add that next because I'll be using it myself so much for
development.. Less time in that state is less likely for ppl to
'semi-brick' their device.
There is of course always the stmicro dfuse demo that can always unbrick
the device. I tried really hard to jump to their bootloader but no
matter what I did I couldn't get it working. It was never recognized by
USB. I half way wonder now if I needed to disable the bootpin which I
never would want to do anyway..
Created separate build_stm folders for INL6 & INL_NES which is what all
the NESmaker kits use. Also update the make files to be more accurate
about what chip their using since fwupdate tries to prevent a hardfault
from flash access beyond what's available.
This update doesn't include a means of updating the first 2KByte of
firmware updater space itself. But the application code should be able
to take care of that for us in a future update. It's only 2KByte so
just temporarily storing the fresh build in SRAM will probably work.
Although will have to be careful about any calls from application code
to fwupdater. Plus there's always dfuse..
Other problem I ran into was erasing the application code. It worked
fine early on for all 30KByte. But as my fwupdater function grew it
crashed when page 18 was erased. Realized my bigger switch/case
statement was calling a gcc library function that resided in the
application code. It was only 50Bytes, so moved it to fwupdate section.
Brought 2 of similar library functions over as well, but one of them
disappeared with update to latest version of arm-none-eabi-gcc.
Not a commit really, but this is the release where I updated gcc. Was
previously:
gcc version 6.2.1 20161205 (release)
[ARM/embedded-6-branch revision 243739]
is now:
gcc version 7.3.1 20180622 (release) [ARM/embedded-7-branch revision
261907] (GNU Tools for Arm Embedded Processors 7-2018-q2-update)
Updating gcc provided a smaller build size of ~250 Bytes from the tail
end. But it also freed up ~50Bytes in fwupdate space as well.
Added windows driver package, just have to run InstallDriver.exe to
get drivers installed on windows 10 (and others I believe)
Created dictionaries for all remaining cart connectors.
Nothing useful there yet, just wanted to get the files created
and dictionaries working.
Added bunch of notes to shared_dictionaries to explain how to go
about creating new dictionaries and some opcode details.
Have STM8 cic communications working "CICCOM" to change between H/V
mirroring on new discrete boards. Currently these operations are handled
entirely from the host scripts and opcode/operands are mostly hard coded.
Need to move these to more generic functions in the ciccom dictionary
which will also speed things up moving to the firmware which will speed
things up.
Some changes to mapper 30 script to eat the ines header, and test CHR-RAM
banking.
Some updates to snes flashing operations, still a work in progress to
fully support prior SNES board designs.
Paul Desktop ASUS-C7H