Is there any interest in a forum or sub forum devoted to boot loaders? know I have several ideas I would like to kick around, how about you?
I have never tried setting up a poll before, but will attempt it here
Boot Loader Forum
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There have been calls for other new forums before. The admins don't want to fragment the forums. So having a new forum is incredibly unlikely to happen whether or not you have a vote. You have to go talk to the admins/webmasters.
I think some smart person (like Sylvain) that knows about boot loaders needs to write a white paper with a nice top down executive summary about how they work, how to use them, different options for which port to use, etc.
Ok, there does not not seem to be an ovewhelming interest.
If the person who indicated they had ideas to share would email me, perhaps we could have some privite discussions about boot loaders
Hi, Laurence,
yes, I am interested to discuss bootloader topics.
Yes, I am also interested to share my experience. But not before I see my own .hex-reading Bootloader working. (The actual problem is not the bootloading, this code is written and shall be tested. The problem: My understanding of XON/XOFF seems to be different from the understandung of the author of the terminal program.)
On the other side: I am not interested to open each day a lot of specialiced forums.
I like the actual organisation of the forums - especially the search function.
I do not see, that the advantages of such a special forum justify the side effects.
Ciao
Wolfgang
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If the person who indicated they had ideas to share would email me, perhaps we could have some privite discussions about boot loaders
Why not have them here in the open? That's one of the points about fora like theese. IMO, the whole reasoning "If we can't have a specialized forum, we'll have to hide" makes no sense.
Point well taken, my original intent was exactly the opposite.
With all the many topics in the general forum, I felt the various pieces of our discussion might get lost in the pile, and make it more difficult for someone to later find them all.
I've never used a bootloader... always just plugged in the jtag and burned the new program. But I can see that it would be useful in certain senarios... you should be able load load any type of file (hex or binary) from any available port (rs232, spi, parallel 8 bit if avail, maybe even usb or ethernet). You set some defines and compile it up, and you have a custom bootloader.The possible problems: How do you tell it when to load a program and when to run the prog in flash? Seems like the 'wait a couple of seconds to see if the bootload happens' then run the regular program is sort of awkward, especially for something that needs to wakeup and run real fast.
The pause can be quite short on start up. An alternative is for software to send a set of bytes to the ATmega which don't appear in a normal datastream and use them to cause a jump to the bootloader. A bootloader can free up desk space, allow fast reflashing and make it possible for end users to upgrade firmware without having additional hardware.
Last Edited: Sun. Mar 6, 2005 - 07:35 PM
My application is in a embedded system where the pins for serial or parallel reprogramming are not conviently available.
While most seem to provide a short time at powerup for activating the boot loader, I will add a command to the normal protocol used to talk to the unit.
The boot loader option is attractive because of Murphys Law. If you can't change the program, you will need to.