68K/ColdFire® Microprocessors

[mccp]

Hi all,

I have eventually written up the instructions for setting up a complete C/C++ development system for Coldfire, using the Eclipse IDE, GNU toolchain and SubVersion for source control. All of the software is open source and can be downloaded for free (links are provided).

If you have a P&E Micro BDM cable, you also get integrated visual debugging with GDB.

There is no 'Managed Make' plugin, so you have to roll your own makefiles. I have created a hello_world application that can be used as a starting point. If you aren't willing or able to learn GNU Make (it is very complicated) then I suggest you look at commercial packages based on Eclipse that come with a 'Managed Make' plugin in - available from many suppliers of commercial tools for ColdFire.

Eclipse is a superb IDE that is supported with hundreds of free and commercial plugins for all sorts of development tasks. It is probably the best I have used in 20 years of professional programming! When you combine it with source control issue tracking and an integrated serial terminal (all available for free!!) you have a top quality professional developemnt environment.

This has all been written from the point of view of setting up a development environment for the 5282, hosted on a Windows platform. I'm sure that much of the instructions can be adapted for Linux but don't ask me for help with Linux because I don't use it! It should be very easy to adapt the set up for other ColdFire/68K CPUs.

There is a PDF and HTML instructions hosted on my company's website:

http://www.cambridgeimaging.co.uk/whitepapers.php

Enjoy!

Paul.

Message Edited by t.dowe on 2008-10-30 02:59 PM

[ynaught]

Paul,

Thanks for the info in this post!  I'm anxious to try these tools.

I noticed that in your whitepaper section "How to get the software" your link to the eclipse binaries is just wrong.  Google helped me, but maybe you want to repair it?

Thanks for your input!

[timmer]

NetBurner offers a complete tool chain based on Eclipse that includes compiler, linker, and debugger. The $99 development kit also includes a complete RTOS, TCP/IP stack, and web services in source form. The tools are built and ready to use. It's a great tool set, at a great price, take a look.

Tim Shannon
NetBurner Inc.
www.netburner.com

[mccp]

Thanks ynaught.

The correct URL for Eclipse downloads is http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/. Now fixed in my instructions.

Paul.

[bkatt]

1. Has anyone figured out how to set this up on Linux?

2. Is there any solution for loading the flash with Linux?
(using 52233 and 5282 parts with internal flash)

3. Can the USB BDM cable be used with Linux, or do you have to use a parallel cable?

[mccp]

To answer your first question, although I haven't set this up on Linux, the way to do it will be:

1. Set up a GNU m68k toolchain with support for the BDM version of gdb. There are some notes on the uCLinux website at http://www.uclinux.org/ports/coldfire/notes.html.

2. When this is working, in other words, when you can compile, link, upload images and debug using gcc and gdb from the command line you can install Eclipse and configure it it the way I have suggested in my notes. The main changes will be to any path names.

You may get a better answer to your other questions if you post a separate query in the forum.

Cheers,

Paul.

[thm59]

hello,

Just to add a small tip :
For the last step ("the icing of the cake" ), I tried to install the terminal, but it dont appaired in the windows views menu ( "show view" >> "other" ).

The solution was as follows :
Open a dos prompt command windows, and, after going in the eclipse directory, start eclipse with the dos command line :  eclipse.exe -clean

thierry

Alban Edit: reformatting following user request.

Message Edited by Alban on 2007-04-23 04:36 PM

[stzednnb]

Hi Paul,

great tutorial! Thanks a lot.

I just wanted to add a note to your example write() function. It has to return the length of the string written instead of 0. Otherwise printf's won't work.

int write(int file, char *ptr, int len)
{
   int i;
   
   for (i = 0; i < len; i++)
   {
      uart0_out_char(*ptr++);
   }
   return len;
}


Best regards
Nathan

[mccp]

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for the vote of encouragement!

Watch this space for a big update to the Eclipse IDE for embedded work. At the moment I am testing the release candidates of the v3.3 Eclipse Platform with the C/C++ development tools v4.0 release candidate.

There are far too many improvements to the platform to mention in a short post, but suffice to say that the support for embedded development has improved no end since last June's releases. When the release versions are available (June 07), I'll add another tutorial.

Another worthwhile plugin that we are now using is Mylar which integrates Eclipse with issue trackers like Bugzilla, Trac, Jira, etc. I will also be investigating Buckminster, which looks like it will help with build management.

The Device Software Development Project (DSDP) is still at a relatively early stage as Eclipse projects go, but there are a load of interesting developments worth looking at there.

Cheers,

Paul.

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi Paul, and others watching the thread!!

I have just found another document which describes the tool chain. It seems as though they have a single download which installs all necessary components (from GCC through Zylin CDT to Java).

I haven't tried it (I was actually looking for something else) but it may give some new ideas??

Here's the link: http://download.ronetix.com/toolchain/m68k_cross_development_guide.pdf

Regards

Mark

www.uTasker.com