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Folks,
I've been fiddling around with how BricxCC and NQC talk to the RCX when
using the USB tower. It's because of several users experiencing
problems when trying to download programs from within BricxCC (using NQC
behind the scenes). Depending on the complexity of the program users
were getting an error back from NQC. Also, even though I have
traditionally had virtually zero problems with downloading firmwares
using BricxCC with either tower and both slow and fast modes I have
heard from users in the past who have never had any luck with BricxCC
and downloading firmwares. So I've been trying to fix these problems.
I've been banging my head against the code for over a week now and I've
tried many different approaches to the problem. Finally I am somewhat
satisfied with the results. BricxCC feels like it is more responsive
when using the USB tower. And I'm having good success downloading all
the firmwares I have at my disposal.
Unfortunately, I was also having good success downloading firmwares
before I ripped the code apart and rewrote it. So my tests don't prove
that other users will have great success. I must beg, humbly, that
several of you might be willing to run some tests for me to see whether
you are (still) able to download firmwares and programs using the serial
and USB towers (using both modes for the firmware download).
Both NQC and BricxCC have a verbose mode which produces output that might be
useful for me to look at if any of you experience problems in your testing.
nqc -Susb -v -q -firmfast firm0328.lgo > usbfast.txt
nqc -Susb -v -q -firmware firm0328.lgo > usbslow.txt
nqc -SCOM1 -v -q -firmfast firm0328.lgo > comfast.txt
nqc -SCOM1 -v -q -firmware firm0328.lgo > comslow.txt
You might also want to try the undocumented option for setting the firmware
chunk size (the size can be up to 2k but you'll probably experience errors if
you use a very large value). The default chunk size is 200.
nqc -Susb -v -q -f800 -firmfast firm0328.lgo > usbfast800.txt
With BricxCC the verbose mode is selected by the /Verbose command-line
parameter. In this case BricxCC writes the diagnostic output to the clipboard
when the application is shutdown.
1. Launch BricxCC with /Verbose (use Start/Run or a command prompt)
2. Find the brick on a COM port or on a USB port.
3. Use the Preferences dialog to switch between fast or slow mode. (The checkbox
is now near the bottom of the General tab.)
4. Ignore the 2x checkbox (it doesn't work with the serial tower yet).
5. Choose quiet firmware download if you don't want to hear the upward beeps at
the end of the download (this used to be the default setting but it is now
configurable).
6. Adjust the firmware chunk size if desired.
7. Choose Tools/Download Firmware.
8. Exit BricxCC.
9. Paste the clipboard contents into Notepad and save it to an appropriately
named file.
If you can test downloading programs with NQC that would also be useful.
nqc -Susb -TRCX2 -q -v -d bigprogram.nqc > usbdownload.txt
nqc -SCOM1 -TRCX2 -q -v -d bigprogram.nqc > comdownload.txt
The test versions are in an updated swan_test.zip file:
http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/swan_test.zip
Thank you very much for being willing to help.
John Hansen
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