Dealing with and debugging distributed systems, I end up with multiple debug probes and target boards on my desk. When starting a debugging session, it can be hard to identify a debug probe by its serial number. What I do in such a situation: put a color stick on the debug probe and have it assigned a nickname.
That nickname then shows up during the debug connection, and I’m sure I connect to the right probe and board that way.
Continue readingVS Code is managing its extensions (see VS Code: MCUXpresso Extension). But to make it usable for embedded development, you need more tools: compiler, linker, debugger, libraries, build system, debug probe support, …
For the experts, this is not a big deal: you know where to get them, and you install them, as shown with another tutorial. But for a class full of students or newcomers to VS Code, this can be a a time consuming and daunting task.
To make the installation easier, NXP has released a ‘dependency checker and installer’ along with their VS Code extension, which makes the setup much easier and simpler.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
And this applies to VS Code and many of its extensions. You agree to the licensing conditions, and you pay with your data.
VS Code source code is MIT licensed, but the binaries you can download and install have telemetry built in: you are giving Microsoft your usage data in return for using VS Code.
If you are concerned about this, and looking for free and libre open source binaries of VS Code, then have a look at MIT-Licensed VSCodium.
Now about the biggest reason why everyone loves VS Code: colors!
Seriously, one of the first things you might change is the color theme, and VS Code features this in the getting started:
This is another article in my series about Visual Studio Code. After having it installed (see VS Code: IDE Installation), this one is about starting the IDE
I can start the IDE from the shortcut (if created during the installation) or by typing code in console/command prompt shell (e.g. Windows PowerShell). To be able to use the code command requires VS Code to be present in the PATH.
Nothing has to last forever, and VS Code might not be the right thing for everyone. VS Code can go overboard with all the extensions and things it had proposed to install. Up to a point that one needs to get re-started again. Or because you tasted VS Code, but you did not like it.
That’s OK, you can uninstall it, after you have installed it (see VS Code: IDE Installation). The catch is: the uninstall does not a full removal, as settings and extensions do not get removed.
This article shows how to fully uninstall VS Code.
Continue readingThis is the beginning of an article series about Visual Studio Code. The first step is to download and install it.
The Freescale K20DX128 MCU was one of the first ARM Cortex-M devices of that company (now NXP) back in 2012, and the FRDM-K20D50M board was the first ‘FRDM‘ board of a long and successful series of boards, starting back in 2013. I still have the K20 present in many of my designs. The challenge with ‘early’ or ‘legacy’ devices is that after a while, they are ‘not recommended’ any more, and it is hard to get support for them. So for example in newer tooling and software from NXP, there is no support for the K20.
So if you still have the K20 around, and need some newer tooling, then I have good news for you: It is possible to add that good-old-Kinetis to the list of supported LinkServer devices, so you are not stuck and can use newer debugging solutions for the K20.
Continue readingThe combination of the NXP MCUXpresso IDE with the NXP MCU-Link Pro debug probe implements a nifty power and energy measurement tool (see New “MCU-Link Pro”: Debug Probe with Energy Measurement). The eclipse based IDE provides a dedicated view to inspect the data collected. It can export and import data, but it is in a binary format. In this article I present a way to export and then convert the data into .csv or any other format for processing or visualizing it in different ways.
Using an open source command line tool, the binary data gets converted into a csv format, which then can be consumed by many tools, e.g. gnuplot.
The MCU-Link is an inexpensive CMSIS-DAP debug probe from NXP. It can be used as a GDB server debug probe, and as such it includes scripting support. This scripting can be very useful in some cases where the MCU cannot be accessed by a normal debug session. This happens for example if students are not pay attention what binary they flash to which device, causing an MCU to potentially get ‘bricked’.
