Chapter 8: Developing Your Application
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Chapter 8
DEVELOPING YOUR
APPLICATION
8.0 Overview
DSPpro controllers are designed to execute motion programs autonomously using their on-board
CPU. The DSPpro executes these programs from DRAM, which boots from a boot disk image
stored in flash memory, or a boot disk on the host computer via a serial cable connection or
directly through dual-port memory (DSPpro-PC only). This process is similar to a PC booting
from its hard drive.
During application development, we recommend that you test and debug your program using the
host computer’s processor along with an MEI LC/DSP or PCX/DSP controller. With this
method, you benefit from the development and debugging tools supplied with your application
development environment (e.g. Microsoft Visual C++, Borland C, etc.). Because all DSP and
DSPpro Series controllers share the same C function motion library, software developed with a
DSP Series controller can be executed on a DSPpro Series controller with little or no changes.
After you are finished debugging and testing your program on the host with a PCX/DSP or other
DSP Series controller, you can use the supplied utilities to test your application on the DSPpro’s
CPU. When you’re satisfied with the operation of your program on the DSPpro, simply
download the application using the flash memory utilities to commit it to the non-volatile
memory on the DSPpro. You can use either the on-board dual-port memory (DSPpro-PC only)
or a serial connection to connect the two systems.
Because the DSPpro does not have a video output port, you should be sure that your application
does not to make use of the video display for troubleshooting or other functions. Instead,
communications with the host computer should take place over serial connections using the serial
toolkit, or across the bus interface using the dual-port toolkit. Other than these display issues,
your program should require no changes to execute on the DSPpro’s CPU.
When developing an application on the DSPpro, system developers will typically take three steps
(illustrated below). These steps are described in more detail in the following sections.
1) Develop the application using a PC and a DSP-Series controller.
2) Verify the application with the DSPpro.
3) Burn the application into flash memory.
Write
Application
Test
Application
using MEI
DSP-Series
Test
Application in
DSPpro
Configure
DSPpro
Startup Files
Cook
Application into
Flash memory
Figure 8-1. DSPpro application development process
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