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Subject: 
Re: NXT Firmware source code
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics.nxt
Date: 
Sat, 16 Dec 2006 20:55:11 GMT
Viewed: 
14218 times
  
In lugnet.robotics.nxt, Ralph Hempel wrote:
   In lugnet.robotics.nxt, Jason J Railton wrote:
   This is very good news. Thanks for the update. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, particularly to have a look at the rather weak graphics capabilities. I’ve had an expanded font (and a much smaller one) kicking around for a while now.
Jason, can you share these fonts at all. I am making good progress on integrating LCD support into my replacement firmware but I only have one 6x8 font set, and it’s not complete. I need the font to be in the vertical byte format that the NXT display uses.

About a year ago, I got involved in doing some hacking on the Sony PSP, and wrote a Windows utility that will rip any font at a chosen size as a bitmapped C array. If I can figure out which computer I left the sources on, I’ll make it available. Do you have details on your preferred format? Sounds like you just need a byte array with one byte per vertical column? Is the MSB at the top or bottom?

  
   Is it viable to repeatedly download test versions to the NXT firmware though? Wasn’t there an issue with the number of times you could download?
According to the worst case spec sheet, yes. Under normal temperature and voltage conditions, like in my office, it’s a much bigger number.

I’ve reflashed my firmware hundreds of times with no obvious side-effects.

On (cough) a different NXT-related forum, John Hansen had this to say:

“Reloading the firmware on the NXT eats up a cycle of the firmware flash page lock bits on the first two flash pages. These lock bits are rated at 100 cycles but very reliable sources have said that ATMEL has measured lock bit cycles as high as 7500. I also know that someone from LEGO has tested reflashing his NXT repeatedly until it failed. He was able to reflash somewhere around 7000-8000 times (I forget the exact number).”

Your mileage (and flash failure modes) may vary.

  
   Does anyone have any plans to develop a system whereby machine code applications can be run on the operating system? That would give more scope to develop more advanced applications, as then one could develop libraries to do new things rather than firmware hacks.
Yes. I have a complete GCC build system, with a line oriented interface to GDB through the USB port.

This sounds really cool! Is this available somewhere? (No pressure!)

  
   Is there a forum I’m not aware of where this can be progressed? I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself if no-one’s done a successful build and download yet though...
I would really, really like this newsgroup to be that one point of entry for this kind of discussion.

I couldn’t agree more. I also can’t help but notice that posting activity on LUGNET is on a definite upswing of late.

It’s good to have you back, Ralph!



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: NXT Firmware source code
 
> This is very good news. Thanks for the update. I've been waiting for this for > a long time, particularly to have a look at the rather weak graphics > capabilities. I've had an expanded font (and a much smaller one) kicking around > for a while (...) (18 years ago, 16-Dec-06, to lugnet.robotics.nxt)

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