Step 4: Establish communication and install Firmware

  Before you can run ARMbasic you must be able to communicate with the board that contains the LPC2xxx, and then load ARMbasic firmware onto that board.  These 2 steps are accomplished with the NewFirm program.  The installation of Step 1 has installed a Start Menu shortcut.

  

  NewFirm allows you to choose the serial port on the PC from a list of known ports.  Ports in that list that are capitalized were determined to be using FTDI USB serial devices.  You must also set the control type,  For Coridium style designed boards which use DTR for reset and RTS for boot, this can be selected by the Normal checkbox.  For boards without those connections, you must Manually get the board into a ROM boot configuration.  This is done by holding P0.14 low while asserting RESET.  For instance on Olimex boards this is done by shorting the BSL jumper while pushing RST.  On Futurelec boards, hold the LOAD button while pressing and releasing RESET.

  So select your comport and choose the control method. To test that, push the soft button TEST on the NewFirm program.  It will prompt you for any action required (like pushing buttons on the target board), and then test the communication with the PC.  If it does pass you can go on to the next step (you will see this below)

If this does not pass, then you cannot go on to the next step.  You must verify your connections, choice of COM port, and whether you are driving P0.14 low while driving RST on the LCP2xxx low, and then releasing it.  These would be the same steps you use to program any hex file with a program like FlashMagic.  Refer to the documents that came with your PCB.

Install Firmware on ARM

  This part of the install needs to be run once to place a base set of libraries on the ARM processor.  This firmware includes the initialization code, communication routines, and a set of subroutines called from the user ARMbasic program. 

The NewFirm utility is also used to accomplish this.  The first time you run this portion of the installation, a key will be required.  This process is not yet automated, and requires you to get a key from Coridium. For details on that look at the unlock pages . 

After passing the communication TEST, choose the CPU type -

Once the CPU is chosen the TEST button will become an UPDATE.

Before doing the UPDATE, check the Crystal setting, for instance the Olimex board uses a 14.7456 MHz crystal.

You can also choose the default baud rate.

Remember, that if you change the baud rate here, you will need to set the baud rate in BASICtools.

Now you are ready to place the Firmware on your PCB.  Click UPDATE

Assuming all was connected correctly, you will see something like above, and you are now ready to start writing ARMbasic programs.  This is the last time you will need to run the NewFirm program, as this portion of the Flash will be maintained by the BASIC program.

Remove any BOOT jumpers, and press RESET, which will now launch the ARMbasic runtime monitor running on your PCB.

You are now ready to write your first program.