Proghq - User contributions [en]

Talk:Open-TL866 Protocol

2019-03-13T23:46:39Z

Cr1901: Add talk page for protocol discussion

== Protocol Improvements ==

We currently have a CDC/ASCII protocol; having a high-speed bulk transfer/binary protocol would make some programming/read actions quicker. In addition the speed boost would enable some programming tasks whose timing is currently impossible to meet with the ASCII protocol.

=== Composite Device Proposal ===
Paraphrased from [[User:Elemecca]]. Interface refers to the [http://www.usbmadesimple.co.uk/ums_4.htm USB definition] of interface.

* Support the CDC and high-speed interfaces in parallel, maybe with an option to reset to a high-speed-exclusive mode.
* Make the interfaces mutually exclusive and boot to the CDC interface by default, but expose the high-speed interface with no endpoints in CDC mode.
** High-speed clients can check the device status and request reset to high-speed mode without needing to implement the high speed protocol.

In both cases listed above, control transfers would be used to switch between CDC and high-speed mode. On Windows, the [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/usbcon/winusb WinUSB] driver would attach to the high-speed interface (either using a [https://github.com/signal11/m-stack/blob/master/docs/winusb.txt special string descriptor] or an inf file). We also need an inf file for the CDC interface for Windows 8.1 and below.

== Comments ==
I am on board with either option, with a slight preference for the latter due to being simpler to implement.--[[User:Cr1901|Cr1901]] ([[User talk:Cr1901|talk]]) 23:46, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Open-TL866 Protocol

2019-03-13T23:16:32Z

Cr1901: Created page with "Open-TL866 current uses an ASCII-based protocol to talk to a host. A Python library is provided to automate common tasks. However, there is momentum to supplement the ASCII pr..."

Open-TL866 current uses an ASCII-based protocol to talk to a host. A Python library is provided to automate common tasks. However, there is momentum to supplement the ASCII protocol with a faster binary protocol. See [[Talk:Open-TL866_Protocol]] for more information.

Opentl866

2019-03-13T23:14:25Z

Cr1901: Add Protocol Page for discussion.

https://github.com/ProgHQ/open-tl866

[[Open-TL866 Protocol]]

Talk:FOSS Programmer

2018-09-26T22:43:35Z

Cr1901:

= mcmaster =

While I'm not opposed to such a project, I'm skeptical of the time that it will take to develop such a device and the availability of it vs a COTS solution. In particular, with a TL866 costing $50 and still readily available, effort is much better spent focusing on these.

= cr1901 =

While the TL866 is ending production, the TL866-II is still available/produced. In case TL866-II stops production and both variants become difficult to obtain easily, doing our own design has been proposed before. The short version is we have a lot of good/doable ideas for a FOSS programmer, but it ''would'' be a time commitment and would ''not'' be as cheap as a TL866. I suspect in principle an open design would attract more contributors in the long run; while Elemecca has done a great job on this front, PIC isn't exactly known to be pleasant to work with.

The basic idea I've seen thrown around for a FOSS programmer (from talking with davidc__ on siliconpr0n IRC channel) is thus:

* Use an FPGA with a custom I2C core, possibly an FPGA USB core as well. If we can tolerate HDL to provide a base that's rarely modified, this reduces part count while maximizing flexibility.
* The I2C interface talks to a number of Silego Greenpak 4s, which control both the pass transistors for the power lines and also provide lines of I/O for the target device.
* Greenpak 4 interfacing gives us "free 5V support", they are also incredibly cheap and small.
* FPGA can be put to other use? My proposal is a softcore (RISC-V? lm32? Something else?) running from SPIflash and using block RAM and RAM. This would give a superior development environment in terms of resources 'and' toolchain support compared to PIC.

Talk:FOSS Programmer

2018-09-26T22:42:08Z

Cr1901: /* cr1901 */

= mcmaster =

While I'm not opposed to such a project, I'm skeptical of the time that it will take to develop such a device and the availability of it vs a COTS solution. In particular, with a TL866 costing $50 and still readily available, effort is much better spent focusing on these.

= cr1901 =

While the TL866 is ending production, the TL866-II is still available/produced. In case TL866-II stops production and both variants become difficult to obtain easily, doing our own design has been proposed before. The short version is we have a lot of good/doable ideas for a FOSS programmer, but it ''would'' be a time commitment and would ''not'' be as cheap as a TL866. I suspect in principle an open design would attract more contributors in the long run; while Elemecca has done a great job on this front, PIC isn't exactly known to be pleasant to work with.

The basic idea I've seen thrown around for a FOSS programmer (from talking with davidc__ on siliconpr0n IRC channel) is thus:

* Use an FPGA with a custom I2C core, possibly an FPGA softcore as well.
* The I2C interface talks to a number of Silego Greenpak 4s, which control both the pass transistors for the power lines and also provide lines of I/O for the target device.
* Greenpak 4 interfacing gives us "free 5V support", they are also incredibly cheap and small.
* FPGA can be put to other use? My proposal is a softcore (RISC-V? lm32? Something else?) running from SPIflash and using block RAM and RAM. This would give a superior development environment in terms of resources 'and' toolchain support compared to PIC.

FOSS Programmer

2018-09-26T22:31:07Z

Cr1901:

Discussion page for feasibility of making a from scratch programmer

Existing work: [[Openprog]]

= mcmaster =

While I'm not opposed to such a project, I'm skeptical of the time that it will take to develop such a device and the availability of it vs a COTS solution. In particular, with a TL866 costing $50 and still readily available, effort is much better spent focusing on these.

= cr1901 =

While the TL866 is ending production, the TL866-II is still available/produced. In case TL866-II stops production and both variants become difficult to obtain easily, doing our own design has been proposed before. The short version is we have a lot of good/doable ideas for a FOSS programmer, but it ''would'' be a time commitment and would ''not'' be as cheap as a TL866. I suspect in principle an open design would attract more contributors in the long run; while Elemecca has done a great job on this front, PIC isn't exactly known to be pleasant to work with.

User:Cr1901

2018-09-26T22:21:48Z

Cr1901: Created page with "I can be found on Freenode (cr1901_modern) in #proghq, among other places and yelling at clouds on [https://twitter.com/cr1901 Twitter]. I wrote the initial bitbang firmware..."

I can be found on Freenode (cr1901_modern) in #proghq, among other places and yelling at clouds on [https://twitter.com/cr1901 Twitter].

I wrote the initial bitbang firmware for the [https://github.com/ProgHQ/open-tl866 open-tl866] project for [[User:Mcmaster|John McMaster]] in April 2018, after our initial attempts at cloning ourselves to do the work for us failed.